Rokubi no Okami, the story of the wolf Junchuuriki
by German53
Summary: Anko was on a routine patrol when she came across something that would change her life forever.  Now she has an adopted son, Ryld, the Jinchuuriki for the Rokubi no Okami. Will the ninja world be ready for him?   AU.  InoXOCXTayuya
1. The Discovery

**CHAPTER ONE: THE DISCOVERY**

Fifteen-year-old Mitarashi Anko was on night patrol near the outskirts of Konoha with a pair of ANBU when she suddenly heard crying. She glanced at the two ANBU with her, one wearing a dog mask and the other wearing a tiger mask, both nodded and they quickly tree hopped towards the sound of the crying. All three landed stealthily in the foliage of a large tree and looked at the scene in front of them.

On the ground was a small boy of about three or four was lying next to the body of a young woman crying his eyes out. The woman was obviously dead, with many wounds apparent on her body. Looking at the child Anko felt like her heart was breaking, he looked so helpless and alone. Making a few quick hand gestures to the ANBU with her, signaling that she was going out alone and for them to cover her, Anko dropped down from the tree and slowly walked towards the child.

As she got close to the edge of the tree line Anko go a good look at the boy and the body of the woman in front of her. The boy looked about three or four, he had somewhat long and gravity defying bluish-black hair (Think super sayan hair except blue-black instead of golden). He was wearing a pair of blue pajamas with no shoes so it looked like he just got out of bed. The woman looked to be in her early twenties, she was wearing standard shinobi garb, blue ninja sandals, black tight ninja pants, a loose fitting blue gi top and a Hitae-ate, although Anko couldn't see the symbol on it, as well as several pouches for her ninja tools.

As soon as she stepped onto the road the child noticed her and got a look of terror on his face. He quickly grabbed a kunai from the woman's pouch and held it out towards Anko with an unsteady hand. "Stay away from us." He yelled at Anko, while standing protectively in front of the woman's body. "You won't hurt momma again."

Anko was not really surprised by the kids reaction, but she decided not to use her usual tactic of scaring people half to death since with this child she might actually kill him due to fear. So instead she took a non-aggressive pose with he hands held up in front of her. "Whoa there gaki, I'm not going to hurt you. I just came to find out what all the yelling was about." Saying this Anko squatted down in a crouch until she was eye level with the boy. "It's ok, I promise that I wont hurt you." She said soothingly to the child.

The two ANBU in the trees were amazed at what they were seeing, here was Mitarashi Anko, the snake mistress and one of the most frightening kunoichi in all of Konoha, sounding for all the world like a concerned big sister to a random child.

The child looked at the purple haired lady in front of him and slowly lowered the Kunai he was holding. "You promise you won't hurt me or mom?" The child asked Anko in the desperate pleading way that only small children are capable of. Seeing this Anko felt her heart breaking all over again.

"Of course I promise. What's your name gaki? Mine is Mitarashi Anko." Anko said as she gave the child a little two-finger salute.

The child looked thoughtful for a moment before answering. "Well my name is Ryld, I don't have a last name." The boy said sadly while looking at the body of his mother. "She woke me up and we left our village in the middle of the night, she said we had to get away to some place called Konoha so that we could be happy. She had me wrapped up in a blanket but I could hear yelling all around us. There was lots of crashing and it was really loud. Mom thought I couldn't see anything in my blanket but I saw a few things, I saw some people making weird hand signs and throwing knives like these all around the village." He said while showing Anko the kunai he had pointed at her before.

Anko was fairly surprised by his story; he had survived what sounded line a full-scale assault on his village and his mother had obviously risked her life to bring him to Konoha. "Well Ryld I guess you have some luck left in you." Anko smiled at the child's confused expression. "You see gaki, I am from Konoha." Anko said while pointing at the Hitae-ate she was wearing, it had a metal plate on it with a stylized leaf in the center.

Ryld looked at Anko with a surprised expression on his face. "You're from Konoha?" He asked in a slightly awed voice.

"Yup I sure am. Now since you were going to Konoha, why don't I take you there, it's still a pretty good ways off and I don't want anything to happen to you." Anko offered in a very soothing voice.

Ryld looked hopeful for a moment before his face fell. "What about mom? I can't just leave her here in the road." He said in a sad voice.

Anko had already thought of this. "Its okay gaki, I have some friends close by that will bring your mom with us to Konoha." Anko said as she signaled to her two ANBU companions. Both ANBU appeared in front of Anko, causing Ryld to jump at their sudden appearance. Turning back towards Ryld Anko said. "Listen Ryld, my friends here are going to go through some of your mothers things, this way we can figure out who she was." Ryld nodded at Anko, who in turn nodded to the tiger masked ANBU.

He went over to the woman's body and slowly turned her over, revealing the Hitae-ate that she wore with the symbol of a stylized flame in the center. Tora _(Tiger)_ was not familiar with this symbol and turned towards his two companions to see either of them knew this symbol. Both Inu _(Dog)_ and Anko shook their heads, neither recognizing the symbol. Tora then went about searching the body in a quick and precise manner. He found standard ninja equipment, Kunai, Shuriken, explosive tags, etc., as well as several scrolls. One of the scrolls that caught his attention had the same Kanji as the Hokage's hat, meaning it must be for him to read. Tiger held that scroll up for Anko. "Anko-san we must get this scroll to Hokage-sama. It may reveal things about this child."

Anko nodded and turned back towards Ryld who was looking at the body of his mother with tears in his eyes. She squatted down in front of him and looked him in the eyes. Up close she noticed that he had a very lean face and his ears were slightly pointed, his face reminded him slightly of a wolf's face, especially with his bright golden eyes that seemed to catch the moonlight and glow. "Alright Ryld, were going to go to Konoha now, my friends are going to carry your mother and I'm going to carry you. We're going to go really fast so you need to hold on to me tight okay?" Anko asked the boy in front of her.

Ryld nodded and walked over to Anko and grabbed a hold of her. Anko picked the boy up and hugged him close while Tora took the body of the woman. All three shinobi looked at each other before the leapt into the trees and took off towards Konoha. Ryld was surprised by the speed at which they moved and tightened his hold on Anko's tan trench coat. Despite how fast the three shinobi were moving it would still take them most of the night to get back to Konoha, after a few hours Anko looked down at the boy she was carrying and noticed that he was fast asleep snuggled up against her. This made the purple haired snake summoner feel very warm inside, as most of the village hated her for her association with Orochimaru, and the few that didn't hate her never got this close to her.

Finally near daybreak they made it back to Konoha, as they approached the gates they were met by the Chunin gatekeepers, Kotetsu and Izumo. "How was your night patrol?" Kotetsu asked before noticing the cargo the three ninja were carrying. "Wow looks like you guys had an eventful patrol." Kotetsu said looking at the body that Tora was carrying and the boy in Anko's arms.

"We need to take these two to Hokage-sama immediately." Tora said to the two gate guards, both nodded and went back to filling out their paperwork. At the nod of the gatekeepers all three ninja disappeared as they shunshined towards the Hokage tower.

At this moment the Sandaime Hokage of Konohagakure Sarutobi Hiruzen was sitting at the desk in his office looking at the bane of all Kage, paperwork. He was currently debating on just destroying the entire pile of it with a well-placed Katon jutsu, but decided against it, as it would just increase the amount he would have to do. His musings about his hated foe were interrupted when his secretary knocked on his door and poked her head in. "Hokage-sama, Mitarashi Anko and the two ANBU you sent with her are here to report on their patrol mission."

"Very well send them in." The Hokage stated as he finished signing his latest piece of paperwork. As soon as he finished Anko walked into the room carrying a small child followed by Tora holding the body of a young woman and Inu taking up the rear to close the door. Sarutobi raised an eyebrow at the cargo his shinobi had but said nothing. Anko walked over towards the offices couch and attempted to lay the sleeping boy down on it, however he tightened his grip and snuggled even closer to Anko, who had a slightly embarrassed look on her face.

"Well it appears you three had a very eventful patrol mission." The Sandaime said with a slightly amused smile on his face as he looked over at Anko who didn't seem to know what to do with the child holding on to her. "Anko-chan you can sit down on the couch with the boy, it doesn't look like he is going to let go of you anytime soon." Sarutobi said, Anko nodded slowly and sat down on the couch. As soon as she sat down, the boy shifted slightly so he was sitting on her lap still holding on to her coat for what seemed like dear life and snuggled his face onto her shoulder.

Tora had in the meantime laid the body of the woman on the floor of the office and taken off her hitae-ate so that he could show it to the old Hokage. "Hokage-sama we came upon these two in the forest on the outskirts of Konoha, we heard the boy crying and went towards the noise, we found the boy lying on top of the woman holding on to her and crying. Anko-san went and started speaking with the boy; she calmed him down and finally called us to come look at the body. She was wearing this Hitae-yate that none of us recognized, also she had this scroll that has the kanji for 'Hokage' on it so we assumed that it was meant for you to read." Finishing his report Tora handed him both the scroll and the Hitae-ate.

Sarutobi looked at the Hitae-ate and got a very shocked look on his face, he did indeed recognize it. It was the symbol for Kakushigakure, the Village Hidden in the Flames, one of Konoha's most secret allies. Almost none knew the village even still existed, most believed it had been destroyed in the Second great Shinobi War. While the village had taken massive casualties during the war it had not been destroyed, instead it had made a secret alliance with Konoha and destroyed the site where the village had been. The remaining villagers then went into hiding and started slowly building their strength back up, the last that he had heard of them was that they were nearing the strength of some of the smaller hidden villages like Amegakure or Takigakure. Sarutobi wasn't sure what to make of this development, it seemed that a Kakushi ninja wanted to bring her son to Konoha to live.

The Sandaime Hokage took the scroll and saw that it had a blood seal on it, meaning it could not be opened without the blood of the person it was for. He quickly bit his thumb to draw blood and ran it along the length of the seal. The seal smoked for a moment and then vanished. Sarutobi opened the scroll and began reading.

_Hokage-dono._

_My name is Kimiko and if you are reading this then I am most likely dead. If I am dead then I hope that my son Ryld survived and is safely in Konoha. You are most likely wondering why I have come to Konoha from Kakushi and the answer is simple, Kakushigakure no Sato is no more. The Village Hidden in the Flames has been completely destroyed. _

_My son and I are the last survivors of the village. To answer the question that is most likely first upon your mind, yes I know who destroyed my village. They were shinobi of great strength, and while I never saw a Hitai-ate on any of them the one person that I did see was their leader, and this person was the criminal Orochimaru, the snake Sannin and criminal traitor of Konoha. He led the shinobi that destroyed my beloved village. The village elders and veteran shinobi were unable to defeat him, however they were able to distract him and his forces for long enough that it allowed my son and I to escape. _

_The reason that they risked their lives was to protect my son. Ryld is the container for the Rokubi no Okami, the six tailed demon wolf, and before you jump to any conclusions about it, the Rokubi is not an evil creature. It is actually the guardian of our village. The Rokubi is placed inside a human not as a means of containment, it is in fact to allow the Rokubi to better protect our village. _

_During the Second Great Shinobi War Kakushi was nearly destroyed due to the combined might of Kiri and Iwa, it is during this time that the Rokubi first decided to protect those of our village. It was with its help in its Bijuu form that we were able to escape the slaughter of our village. Once it helped us get to a new and more secure location it actually suggested to our current Kazankage (volcano shadow) that it be sealed within a human vessel, so that it could better assist with always being the guardian of out village. Ever since then we have used the seal that the Rokubi gave us to seal it within the bodies of a single line of shinobi; that of our Kazankage's most trusted friend. _

_This man was my grandfather, the first container of the Rokubi no Okami, upon having the Rokubi sealed within him my grandfather decided that our clan would give up their clan name and live only to be the guardians of Kakushi. When my grandfather died the Rokubi was re-sealed within my father, and now the Rokubi has been passed on to my son. _

_I humbly ask you Hokage-dono to allow my son Ryld to live within Konohagakure and be raised as one of your shinobi. Ryld knows what is contained within him. He had his duty as protector of our village taught to him from the cradle. He was just beginning his shinobi training when the attacks started. Most likely the Rokubi has already begun speaking with my son to further teach him about his role and to assist with his training. If you feel that you do not want a Jinchuuriki living in your village then I understand, however I do beg that you allow this to happen. My son will become a very powerful shinobi and would greatly help Konoha as one of its protectors, it is what he has been raised for his entire life. _

_Should you allow my son to stay in Konoha there are a few things that I would like him to have, these items are sealed within this scroll that I have given you. The first two are a pair of swords that were forged specifically for my son. I would like them to be presented to him once he graduates from the ninja academy and becomes a Genin. The last item is a summoning contract. I would like this to be presented to him at a time when he is participating in the Chunin exams for the village. This summoning contract can only be opened and used by someone of our family's bloodline; we have made a special agreement with the being of the summoning contract and they only allow those of our blood to summon them. Even if someone of a different family signs the contract the beings will not respond._

_Sincerely_

_Kimiko of Kakushigakure_

Sarutobi finished reading the scroll and heaved a heavy sigh. Once he got to the ending of the scroll he noticed three seals on the paper. One read Contract, one Heaven, and one Hell. Deciding to see what items the child sill sleeping in Anko's arms was supposed to receive he unsealed the Contract seal first. As Kimiko had stated it was a summoning contract with a blood seal on it. Looking at the contract Sarutobi noticed the kanji for dragon written in red ink. The Sandaime's eyes nearly came out of his head in shock. No one had ever managed to get the fabled dragon clan to allow for a summoning contract to be written with them.

Laying the contract down on his desk he next unsealed the Heaven and Hell seals. The Heaven seal contained a Katana in a pristine white sheath with dragons twirled around it in blue. Unsheathing the Katana he noticed that the blade was on a strange blue metal and it had a Kanji at the base of the blade that read 'Kamikaze' _(Divine Wind)_. Re-sheathing the blade, Sarutobi unsealed the Hell seal and saw another Katana, the one in a red sheath with black dragons twirled around it. He unsheathed the blade and saw that again it was also made of a strange metal, this one was solid black and it also had a Kanji at the base of the blade and it read Oni-kaji _(Demon Flame)_.

Re-sheathing both swords he set them aside next to the contract and looked over at the four people in his office. "Well this is certainly an interesting though tragic turn of events. Tora, Inu what you found on the road outside of Konoha is now an S-ranked village secret, as is the birthplace of the child. I'd like you to take the body of the woman and have it put to rest. You are both dismissed." With their dismissal both ANBU Shunshined out of the office. Then Sarutobi turned towards the young Kunoichi holding the boy in her arms. "Now then Anko-chan what do you think we should do with this boy? I am inclined to follow his mother's last wishes and allow the boy full citizen ship in Konoha and allow him to enroll into the ninja academy once he is old enough. However I do not really want him to live in the orphanage, since we know that didn't work out well with Naruto. So I ask again what do you think I should do with him?" Sarutobi asked the purple haired Kunoichi.

Anko looked surprised that the Hokage was asking her opinion on something like this. "Well Hokage-sama, I'm not sure what we should do with the little gaki. You said you don't want him in the orphanage, it seems like the best answer would be to have someone adopt him, but who would be willing to take a child from a foreign village like that?" Anko had a thoughtful look on her face as her mind worked to try and figure out who could take the small child in her arms.

Sarutobi smiled sagely at the young woman in front of him. "Well he certainly seems to like you Anko-chan. Maybe you would be willing to look after him for a while? At least until we find a family willing to adopt him." The Hokage suggested to the young kunoichi.

Anko looked thoughtful for a few moments before answering. "Well I guess we could always ask the gaki if he wouldn't mind staying with me." Anko started shaking the small boy awake. "Hey Ryld, wake up gaki. I have someone who would like to ask you a few questions." Anko said while shaking the boys shoulders slightly.

Ryld woke up very slowly feeling warm and safe for the first time in several days. He opened his eyes to see the smiling face of the woman who had talked to him on the road. Slowly his memories returned this woman was Mitarashi Anko a Kunoichi of Konoha, where he and his mother had been going. Ryld smiled at the woman holding him. "Hi Anko-Kaachan." Ryld said quietly.

Anko's heart melted at hearing his form of address. She looked at the Hokage and said. "Hokage-sama you will not need to find someone to take him in. I will raise him myself. I'll even adopt him so that he finally has a surname." Anko said with growing confidence while looking at the small boy who had quickly and effectively stolen her heart.

_A few days later_

Anko was taking her newly adopted son Ryld shopping for some things that he would need since he was living with her. She went into some of the stores that sold children's clothes and bought him some extra sets of clothes. She also took him into her favorite Dango shop for a mid day snack. While she and Ryld were eating she heard a familiar voice.

"Anko how are you?" Looking around Anko saw her friend Yuhi Kurenai looking at them with her exotic red eyes. Walking over toward them she saw Ryld sitting with Anko and smiled at him. "Who is this little cutie Anko?" She asked with slight surprise.

"Who this little gaki? This is Ryld, he's my son." Anko said with a proud smile, her smile broke into a huge grin at Kurenai's shocked expression.

"When on earth did you have a child Anko? I just saw you a week ago and you didn't have a child." Kurenai asked the purple haired kunoichi.

"I found the little gaki when I was on patrol with Tora and Inu a few days ago, we took him to Hokage-sama and he decided to let him be a citizen of Konoha. The little gaki seemed to like being with me so I decided to adopt him." Turning to Ryld, who was eating his Dango with a look of enjoyment on his face. "Hey gaki say hello, this is my best friend Yuhi Kurenai."

Ryld looked up from his Dango at the woman speaking with his new momma. She had long jet-black hair and bright red eyes. She was wearing a short white dress with black lined running down it and a red right sleeve, and white bandages around her hands and her upper thighs. "Hello Kurenai-san, my name is Ryld, well it's now Mitarashi Ryld since Anko-Kaachan adopted me a few days ago." The young boy said with a large smile on his face that Kurenai thought made him look endearing and somewhat wolf like.

Kurenai couldn't help but laugh at the wolf-like grin on the young boys face. "Well hello their Ryld-kun. How is your Dango?" Kurenai asked.

"It's really good Kurenai-san, I've never had Dango before." Ryld said and took another big bite of the Dango, taking off all three of the sweet dumplings from the stick and washing it all down with his green tea. Kurenai also ordered a plate of Dango and a cup of tea and joined them for their meal. After finishing the meal, the new Mitarashi family went home and got to work getting Ryld's new room ready for him.

_Several years later_

Mitarashi Ryld was sitting in his seat in the Konoha Ninja Academy with his friends Inuzuka Kiba and Aburame Shino, while he listened to his ninja instructor Umino Iruka was going through the list of students for their final exam before graduation to Genin level. Ryld wasn't really listening to the other student's names being called, his friends Kiba and Shino had already passed their tests and were wearing their new Konoha Hitai-ate. Ryld was just waiting for his name to be called.

Iruka looked over at the class. "Mitarashi Ryld, please come down and go into the other room so that you can come do your final exam." Iruka instructed. Ryld got up from his desk and gave Shino a thumbs-up and a high five to Kiba. As he walked down he past Uchiha Sasuke, his primary rival for rookie of the year, he gave him a shitty look that was returned in kind by the last Uchiha. Ryld also gave a high five to Uzumaki Naruto, another friend of his. He gave Yamanaka Ino and Tayuya, two of the prettiest girls in class, a sly wink, which caused the blonde to scowl slightly at him while still blushing, and the redhead to give a very similar sly wink back to him. This reaction cause Ryld to laugh while causing Ino's friend Haruno Sakura, the classes resident banshee, to give Ryld a disgusted look.

Ryld went into the adjoining classroom with Mizuki. "Alright Ryld, now we need you to perform the three required academy jutsu before you are allowed to graduate. The three jutsu are the Henge _(Transformation)_, the Kariwimi_(Substitution)_, and the Bunshin _(clone)_." Ryld nodded at Mizuki-sensei and went through the correct hand signs. "Henge no jutsu." Ryld shouted and transformed into a perfect copy of Iruka-sensei. Mizuki nodded to Ryld, who transformed back to his normal form and went through more hand signs. Ryld disappeared in a cloud of smoke, when the smoke cleared where Ryld had been standing there was now a chair. Ryld went through the final set of hand signs. "Bunshin no jutsu." There were three clouds of smoke and when it cleared there were three perfect copies of Ryld standing next to the original, all four of them had the exact same shit-eating grin on their faces.

Mizuki nodded reluctantly at the young man in front of him as he released the three Bunshin he had summoned. "Very well done Ryld, you… pass." Mizuki said with some trepidation as he handed Ryld the Konoha Hitae-ate. Ryld gave Mizuki his patented wolfish grin and walked back into the other classroom proudly displaying his new Hitae-yate to his fellow classmates. Ryld got happy waves and high-fives from his friends in class, as well as nasty looks from Sasuke and Sakura and a few of the other students that disliked him.

'**Well done cub.**' Came a voice inside of Ryld's head. This voice belonged to his resident, the Rokubi No Okami. '**That fellow Mizuki looked like he didn't want to pass you for a few moments.**' Rokubi commented thinking back to the look that Mizuki had on his face as he passed Ryld. Ryld couldn't help but agree with he demonic tenant and friend, however he quickly put the thought out of his mind as he talked with his friends.

The rest of the day was uneventful except that Ryld's friend Naruto was the only one of his classmates that didn't pass the final academy test. None of the rest of the class noticed how depressed Naruto was that he didn't pass the final exam, but Ryld did notice. After class Naruto was sitting on one of the swings in the playground at the academy looking over at all the graduates from his class. Ryld walked over to his friend and sat on the swing next to him.

"Hey Naruto, I'm sorry that they didn't pass you. What happened? I thought you had all of the jutsu down thanks to me and mom helping you." Ryld asked his friend as he sat there on the swing.

Naruto looked over at Ryld with a sad expression. "I did have them all down, even the Bunshin no Jutsu. That one always gave me problems, but thanks to you and Anko-oneechan I was able to make three Bunshin. Mizuki-sensei told me that they changed the program this year and that I had to be able to create five perfect Bunshin to pass, I tried my hardest but I wasn't able to make more than four. Since I couldn't make the correct amount Mizuki-sensei failed me." Naruto said as he started crying.

Ryld was shocked. They failed him even though he was able to make the correct amount of Bunshin? "That's bullshit Naruto, Mizuki-sensei lied to you. You didn't have to make five Bunshin, I only made three and they passed me, and I know for a fact that Sasuke-teme was only able to make two and they passed him. Come on Naruto; let's go see the academy Headmaster. He'll get this whole thing straightened out." As Ryld said this, Naruto visibly brightened at the prospect of being allowed to pass and graduate from the academy.

The two friends went back into the academy and headed straight for the Headmasters office. Ryld knocked on the Headmasters door. "Come." Came the reply from inside the office. Both boys entered the Headmasters office; said man was sitting behind his desk looking through his paperwork. The Headmaster of the Konoha Ninja academy was an elderly man, he was not actually a ninja, and he got the job by bribing the civilian council into getting the job. He did not like either Ryld or Naruto, as both of them were sent to his office by some of the teachers, Naruto because most of the teachers knew about the Kyuubi and tried to damage his training, and Ryld because most of the village hated his mother Anko due to her being the apprentice of the infamous criminal Orochimaru.

The Headmaster looked up from his paperwork to see his two least favorite students walk into his office. "So which teacher sent you here this time, and what did you two do?" He asked curtly with no preamble.

Ryld and Naruto looked at each other before Ryld answered. "No one sent us here Headmaster, we're coming to you because Naruto should have passed his final Genin test but Mizuki-sensei didn't pass him. I think he just didn't want to."

The Headmaster looked slightly surprised at the tone of voice that Ryld used. "Now why would you say that Mitarashi-san? What makes you think that a distinguished teacher like Mizuki would falsify a test report on any student even _him_?" The Headmaster said laying emphasis on the last word as he looked at Naruto.

"How many Bunshin does a student have to create during the final exam to be allowed to pass?" Ryld asked the Headmaster simply.

The Headmaster looked thoughtful for a moment. "Well you have to be able to create three Bunshin in order to be allowed to pass the exam." He answered, not quite knowing where the two boys were going.

Ryld gave the Headmaster his wolfish grin. "Well Naruto is able to create three Bunshin, but after he did Mizuki-sensei told him that the test had been changed for this year and now he had to create five Bunshin. Naruto was able to create four but not five and Mizuki-sensei failed him for it." Ryld said with some self-satisfaction.

The Headmaster looked troubled for a moment, he did not really want the demon brat to pass and be allowed to become a shinobi. It was bad enough that the son of the snake bitch had been allowed to pass. He suddenly had a very cunning idea. "Well the normal amount is three Bunshin, but the tests are still under the discretion of the individual instructors. So if Mizuki says that Naruto doesn't pass, then _he doesn't pass_, and nothing you do to try and squeak your way around that decision. So since there is nothing else that you need, good day." The Headmaster said with a note of finality.

Ryld was livid. This was a blatant case of the teachers at the academy trying to keep Naruto from graduating and becoming a shinobi. "This is bullshit. You know that the test is only to create Three Bunshin and even though Naruto was able to create four, you're just going to ignore that because some asshole teacher says that he didn't do good enough."

"MITARASHI-SAN the word of my instructors is beyond reproach from a mere student or a mere Genin such as yourself, furthermore if you do not let this matter drop your own graduation can and will be revoked. Is that understood?" The headmaster yelled at the two boys in front of him. Seeing no more argument forthcoming he visibly calmed himself down. "Now since there is nothing more, the two of you may now go." The Headmaster said and promptly dismissed the two boys.

Both boys left the Headmasters office dejectedly. Ryld was disappointed because he was unable to help his friend, and Naruto was upset because it was another case of his teachers being mean to him for no good reason. "Listen Naruto, lets go and talk to Hokage-sama, if anyone can fix this stupid mess its him." Ryld said to his friend.

Naruto lit up for a moment then his face fell again. "No Ryld, I don't want you to get yourself in trouble. You heard the Headmaster; if you don't let this drop then he'll revoke your graduation too. I know you've wanted to be a ninja since before your mom adopted you. How else are you going to become the village's protector?" Naruto said sadly to his friend.

Ryld wasn't sure about what his friend said. "Are you sure Naruto? I mean what kind of protector would I be if I don't help out one of my best friends?" Ryld asked his friend.

Naruto just gave him his best goofy fox grin and said. "Hey it's ok, I'll figure out something, I mean after all you're talking about the man that's going to be Hokage some day." Naruto laughed.

Ryld still wasn't sure, but he took his friend's word for it and started to head home. After Ryld left Mizuki came out of the shadows and walked over towards Naruto. "You know Naruto, I am sorry that I had to fail you but your skill with the Bunshin just wasn't good enough to warrant passing you. However there is another way that you can pass."

Hearing this Naruto immediately perked up and forgot about that fact that Mizuki was one of the teachers that was constantly getting him into trouble and usually treated him like dirt. "What's the other way Mizuki-sensei?" Naruto asked him excitedly.

_Back at the Mitarashi Home_

Ryld walked slowly through the streets of Konoha, some of the villagers gave him dirty looks because of his mother, but Ryld ignored them. He was still worried about his friend. Even though Naruto put up a cheerful front, Ryld knew it was just a mask, he knew that his friend was very hurt by the fact that the teachers at the academy had failed him, even though he had been more than adequate in the final academy test. Still Ryld decided to trust that his friend would not do anything rash in this situation and headed home.

'**Are you sure it was okay to leave him alone cub?**' Asked Rokubi. '**I know he's your friend and you want to trust his judgment, but that kid is even worse about doing dumb things in bad situations than you are. Not to mention he holds the Kyuubi and that dick would love nothing more than for that kid to go ape shit so he can try to get out. Not that he can with that seal the Yondaime placed onto Naruto, I've seen some impressive seals in my time but that one has to take the cake.**' Rokubi said with a laugh.

Ryld thought about it for a few moments before commenting. 'I know what you mean Rokubi-sensei, but Naruto wont do anything as rash as a attacking. He loves this village too much for that, even though a lot of the villagers treat him like shit. If it hadn't been for Hokage-sama and the people at Ichiraku I would be just as worried as you are. I think Naruto will be okay.' Ryld mentally projected at the demonic presents inside of him.

Once he started thinking about home Ryld started to get excited. His mother had told him that once he graduated he would get a big surprise. According to his mom, he would get something that his first mother had wanted him to have. Putting Naruto's situation out of his mind, Ryld put on his Patented wolf grin and channeled chakra to his legs and started to jump up onto the roofs of the village to get home faster.

As soon as he got home Ryld dropped down in front of his front door, unlocked it, and went inside. "Okaachan I'm home. Look I graduated from the academy today, I got my Hitae-yate and everything." Ryld said, proudly displaying his new Hitae-yate on his forehead.

Ryld's mother Anko came into the front room of their house. She took one look at her adopted son and squealed in delight when she saw him wearing a Konoha Hitae-yate. "Great job gaki, you're a real ninja now." She beamed at her son. "Now gaki as I told you before, since you've graduated from the academy I have a very special present for you. This is something that Kimiko-san, your birth mother, wanted you to have once you graduated from the academy." Without further ado Anko went into her personal closet, where she kept all of her mission supplies, and pulled out a sealing scroll.

She tossed the scroll to her son. "Here gaki, this scroll has two storage seals in it, those seals hold the items your mother wanted you to have. The scroll has a blood seal on it that only you can open. Once you get it open you can unseal the items." Anko watched as her son bit his thumb to draw blood then quickly smeared the blood onto the seal on the scroll.

As Ryld smeared his blood onto the scroll, the seal on it promptly dissolved and completely disappeared. He then unrolled the scroll and saw two storage seals written on the paper. One had the kanji for Heaven inside it, and the other had the kanji for Hell. Ryld decided to unseal the heaven kanji first, as soon as he unsealed it a katana in a pristine white sheath with an electric blue dragon wrapped around it. Unsheathing the Katana he saw that the blade was the same electric blue as the dragon wrapped around the sheath, he also saw that there was a kanji near the bottom of the blade, which read 'Kamikaze'.

"Wow this katana is so cool." Ryld said as he went into a kenjutsu stance with it. Quickly re-sheathing the katana he put the katana on the living room table and unsealed the hell kanji. The hell kanji held within it another katana, this one in a blood red sheath with a black dragon wrapped around it. When he unsheathed it he saw that the blade was a solid dead black and the blade did not reflect the least amount of light. This katana also had a kanji on it near the base of the blade, which read 'Oni-kaji'.

Ryld looked at the two Katana on the table in front of him. The craftsmanship of the swords was incredible. He could tell that master sword smiths had forged them. He didn't know what to say about them. "Okaachan I…I don't know what to say, these sword are way too much." Ryld stuttered at his surrogate mother.

Anko laughed at her son's expression. "You don't get it gaki do you? These swords aren't a gift from me. They're a gift from your birth mother. She left a letter with the Hokage that once you graduated from the ninja academy and become a Genin you were to be given these swords. She said that these swords were made specifically for you. We had the villages top weapon maker, Higarashi Kaito, look over the swords once right after you came to the village. He couldn't figure them out, the only thing he could tell was that they were made to have chakra channeled through them. Now you have a week before you meet with your Jonin sensei, I want you to go to the Higarashi weapon store and speak with Kaito-san. His daughter Tenten is a weapon specialist so she should be able to help you with your kenjutsu skills, but for now gaki, were going to celebrate you becoming a Genin and go out for all you can eat Dango." Anko said to her adopted son while laughing like a maniac.

**END CHAPTER ONE**


	2. Swords and a Sensei

**CHAPTER TWO: SWORDS AND A SENSEI**

Ryld was walking towards the Higarashi weapon shop. His mother as part of his graduation present had given him some new shinobi clothes. He was wearing a pair of black ANBU style pants, black shinobi sandals, a mesh undershirt like his mother wore, and a dark red muscle shirt over it, his Hitae-ate on his forehead with a new black band, and to finish it off his mother had given him a new black trench coat. The coat had a red flame pattern running along the bottom of the coat, it also had a tribal wolf head pattern on the back in red stitching. He had both of his new swords strapped to his sides, Kamikaze on his left hip and Oni-kaji on his right.

'**Your mother was right about these swords cub.**' Rokubi commented as Ryld kept running his hands along the swords hilts. '**I suggest that once you either get home or meet your Jonin sensei you have them test your elemental affinity. I believe it will shed some light onto the nature of your new blades.**' Rokubi commented cryptically. Ryld decided to take the demons advice and have his mother check his elemental affinity when he got home.

When Ryld walked into the weapon shop the bell above the door rang, Ryld started walking around the shop looking for the shop owner. As Ryld was looking around the shop he saw lots of racks of different weapons. There were racks of Kunai, Senbon, shuriken, explosive tags, and every other type of ninja weapon available.

"Welcome to the Higarashi weapon shop, how can I help you today?" He heard a perky voice behind him. Ryld turned around to see a girl, maybe a year older than him, standing at one of the weapon racks wearing a pink Chinese style shirt, and a pair of green loose fitting martial arts pants. She had her brown hair up in a pair of buns on the top of her head, making her look a bit like a panda.

"Hi, my name is Mitarashi Ryld. I am looking for Higarashi Kaito-san, my mom is Mitarashi Anko and she told me to come and see him today." Ryld explained to the bun haired girl.

"Oh, okay I'll go get him for you. Oh and by the way my name is Tenten." Tenten disappeared into the back of the shop for a few minutes the back of the shop, before reappearing with the single largest man Ryld had ever seen. He was at least seven feet tall and had more muscles than Ryld had seen on any three muscular men.

Kaito walked up to Ryld and put a huge hand on his shoulder. "Hello Ryld-kun, Anko told me that you would be stopping by today. May I see them?" Kaito asked and held out his hand.

Ryld immediately knew what he meant. He unbuckled both of his blades and handed them to Kaito. He unsheathed Kamikaze's electric blue blade and looked over the pristine blade of the katana. Tenten looked at the sword in her father's hand with an awed expression on her face. "Where did you get a sword like that? I've never seen one like it before." Tenten said in awe, her expression became every bit as awed as Kaito re-sheathed Kamikaze and unsheathed the dead black blade of Oni-kaji.

"Well Ten-chan you will be able to see plenty of these swords you are so enamored with, because you are going to help Ryld-kun here with his kenjutsu training for the next week until he starts with his Jonin sensei. If you want to you can still help Ryld-kun out with his Kenjutsu training after he starts his missions when you're not on missions of course." Kaito said to his daughter.

Tenten heard what her father said and then looked at the swords in his hands with stars in her eyes. "Of course ill help him out with his Kenjutsu training. Now Ryld have you had any Kenjutsu training?" Tenten asked him.

"Yeah I know Kenjutsu aside from what the academy taught. My mom taught me some of the forms and Katas. I just don't have any real sparring experience." Ryld explained to the young weapon mistress.

"Okay Ten-chan you can take the rest of the day off and take Ryld-kun to your team training ground to do some training." Kaito said to the young weapon mistress, while handing the two katana back to Ryld.

Tenten quickly grabbed Ryld's hand and dragged him out of the weapon shop as he tried to buckle his two swords back onto his belt. Tenten quickly pulled Ryld through the crowd of villagers, many of whom gave Ryld dirty looks since they recognized him as the son of Konoha's infamous 'snake bitch', however Ryld had long since gotten used to those kinds of looks and had learned to ignore them.

Tenten and Ryld finally arrived at the Team Nine training ground where they saw Tenten's team mate Rock Lee training his Taijutsu with their sensei Might Gai. When he saw the green spandex clad duo, Ryld raised an eyebrow at the strange looking pair. Both of them had bowl shaped haircuts, they both wore matching green spandex jumpsuits and the pair had the bushiest eyebrows he had ever seen.

"Well now Tenten who is this most youthful looking young man you have brought to our training ground?" Gai asked. Tenten rolled her sensei's antics.

"This is Mitarashi Ryld, he just became a Genin and his mother wants him to learn Kenjutsu, so she asked my dad to have me teach him." Tenten responded to her eccentric sensei. "Come on Ryld, we can go to that free area for our spar." Tenten said as she pointed towards an open circle of dirt in the training area.

Ryld and Tenten walked over towards the clear space. "Now Ryld I want you to go through some of your Katas so I can judge where to start off at in your training."

Ryld nodded and unsheathed both of his blades, holding Oni-kaji in his left hand and Kamikaze in his right. Ryld slowly started going through some of the higher-level Katas he had learned from the scroll his mother had given him. Slowly bringing the blades into the guard into guard position he began the Kata. Ryld slowly began increasing his speed through the Kata. Ryld continued through the advanced Kata and further increased his speed until finally near the end of the Kata, Ryld was going through it at full speed.

When he finally finished the Kata Tenten was looking at him with an appraising eye. "Not bad Ryld. That seemed to be an intermediate level Kenjutsu Kata, although I don't recognize the style, it certainly isn't the usual Konoha style that the ANBU get trained in. What style is it?" Tenten asked him curiously.

Ryld thought about it before answering her, the fact that this had been the official Kenjutsu style of Kakushigakure was not something that he could tell her since it was a secret, but he decided to come up with something else. "This style is called the Kazan style of kenjutsu. My mom got the scrolls for me from a foreign merchant that was in the village a few years ago. It was right after we did a lesson on Kenjutsu in the academy. I was fascinated with Kenjutsu and when we went shopping I saw that this merchant had the entire set of kenjutsu scrolls for sale. I'm pretty sure he didn't even know what he had since he sold them to us for really cheap. My mom had one of the ANBU Kenjutsu masters she knows look over the scrolls so she could get an idea of how powerful the style is, and the ANBU guy said that it was one of the oddest styles he had seen, it has great attack but at the same time great defense, and the two are meant to be used at the same time. So essentially a master of the style can attack and defend perfectly at the same time." Ryld explained to his bun haired sparring partner.

"So what your saying is since you have all the scrolls for your Kenjutsu style you don't need a teacher so much as you do a sparring partner, correct?" Tenten asked the black haired boy.

"Yes and no, mom always taught me that knowing just one way to do something is stupid, because what if your one way of doing something isn't the easiest or best way to do something. While I do want to spar with you and get better at the Kazan style, I'd also like you to help me by showing me if there are any places that the style can be improved, not to mention that if you can start teaching me some of your Kenjutsu style maybe I can merge the two into a whole new style that is completely unique to me." Ryld explained to the brunette in front of him.

Tenten thought about what the boy in front of him had said. "Okay that actually sounds really cool, so lets get to work with sparring." Tenten said as she pulled out a scroll and unsealed her own katana from it. She then dropped into a guard position and motioned for Ryld to attack her.

Ryld, never being one to back down from a challenge, approached his sparring partner and started going through some of the basic attacks for the Kazan style. He did a downward slash with Oni-kaji that Tenten blocked with her own katana. Tenten was somewhat surprised by the strength behind the simple blow as her arm went slightly numb. Ryld followed up his first attack with a horizontal right to left slash with Kamikaze that Tenten was able to nimbly dodge by jumping backwards.

Tenten decided to go on the offensive and quickly charged the boy in front of her. She did a quick combo that involved a feinted thrust to Ryld's middle followed by an upward slash towards Ryld's right shoulder. Ryld fell for the feint and attempted to block it with Oni-kaji, but his reflexes were quick enough the he was able to bring Kamikaze up fast enough to block Tenten's katana from scoring a hit on his shoulder. Ryld countered her attack with a double crossing attack set with both of his katana, a downward set of crossing slashes, followed immediately by an upward set of slashes that Tenten was somewhat hard pressed to block and evade with her own katana.

Tenten went back on the offensive and did a massive overhead slash with her katana that Ryld was forced to block with both of his. He crossed his katana at the hilts and caught the blow from Tenten's sword. "Won Tenten, you are really good." Ryld commented as his swords were being pushed downward slightly by Tenten's blade.

Tenten smirked at the boy in front of her. "You not too bad yourself. That last combo took me by surprise, if it wasn't for the fact that both my teacher and my teammate over there are such speed freaks you would have probably cut me in half with that second cross slash." She complimented to black haired boy in front of her. The two continued their Kenjutsu sparring for several more minutes, Ryld pressuring her a few times, but in the end Ryld was disarmed by the young weapon mistress and was forced up on his tiptoes when she had the tip of her katana to his throat.

"Okay, okay I give Tenten." Ryld quickly put his hands up as he said this to his new friend. Ryld let out a slight sigh of relief as Tenten's katana was taken away from his throat.

"Despite not having anything but scrolls to go off of, you're pretty good Ryld. You're a natural Kenjutsu user." Tenten complimented the young man in front of her. "Come on lets go get some water and then get something to eat."

Ryld quickly agreed with her and absently took off his coat and tossed it against a tree. The coat landed on one of the lower branches and snapped it off before landing on the ground with a boom and leaving a slight crater in the ground.

Tenten quickly spun around at the noise and saw the crater with Ryld's coat laying in it. Her eyes went wide and she looked over at the black haired young man who just continued walking towards the nearby stream. He seemed to have not even heard the crash of his coat hitting the ground. "Hey Ryld wait." Tenten yelled at him before walking up to him. "You coat was weighted?" She asked him.

Ryld looked over at Tenten. "Um yeah it is. I always train with weighted clothes. Mom has weight seals put onto most of my clothes. They are special ones that I can deactivate any time I want to so that I don't actually have to take my clothes off to reduce the weight. She's even teaching me a bit about Seals, it's really interesting but hard." He explained to the bun haired girl.

Tenten was surprised by this revelation. "So how much weight does your coat have on it, and were the weight seals deactivated when we were sparring?" She asked Ryld.

"My coat weighs about one hundred pounds, and no they weren't, I don't ever deactivate my seals when I am training. The only time I will is if I am in a real fight with someone, and we weren't fighting for real Tenten." Ryld explained simply to the weapon mistress, before walking over to the stream and plunging his head into the cold water.

Tenten thought about what he had said for a few moments. He had been very fast during their sparring match, she was sure that if he had released his weight seals during their sparring match then he would have beaten her. She decided not to mention this to him and walked over to the stream where he was just pulling his head out of the water. Amazingly even after having been soaked by the cold water, his blue black hair was still as gravity defying as ever, standing straight back up as he shook his head and got some of the water off himself.

Tenten sat down next to him and used her hands to bring some of the water up and washed her face. After she dried herself off with a towel she said to Ryld. "Well this was a good first day of training. You can come back here tomorrow around the same time and we can continue. As far as I know my team doesn't have any missions for the rest of this week so we should be able to train every day."

"That sounds good Tenten, I get assigned my teammates and meet my new Jonin instructor on Sunday so I may not be there that day. Well its getting a little late, why don't we go get something to eat and then ill take you home okay?" Ryld asked the bun haired weapon mistress.

Tenten quickly agreed and followed Ryld to where his coat lie, after he quickly put it on she noticed that none of the water from his face or neck ran onto the coat, it all just evaporated as soon as it touched it. When he saw her looking at the coat Ryld gave her his patented wolfish grin. "It's a waterproofing seal. One of my mom's original seals. Any water or sweat that comes in contact with my coat is immediately evaporated, that way I don't have to worry about the coat getting wet or smelling like sweat. It's really handy." Ryld explained.

The two young people walked through the village and headed towards Ryld's favorite restaurant, the Dango shop he and his mother frequented. Ryld walked in and immediately ordered a variety of sweet and savory Dango and some green tea. Tenten quickly followed suit and ordered a similar meal to Ryld, but in smaller portions. "So who do you think you're going to be teamed up with?" Tenten asked Ryld as he was eating some of his Dango.

Ryld took a drink of his tea and thought about it for a moment before answering. "I'm not really sure. I just hope they don't put me on a team with that Uchiha emo douche, or his pink haired banshee cheerleader Sakura. I'd be fine with just about anyone else though." Ryld said while finishing off a set of green tea flavored Dango.

Tenten giggled at her new friends description of some of his classmates. The two finished up their meal and Ryld walked Tenten home. After dropping her off Ryld went home as well. As soon as he got home Ryld went in search of his mother, he found he sitting in the living room eating some of her home made Dango and watching TV. "Hey Okaa-san, do you have a way to test my elemental affinity?" Ryld asked while giving his mom a hug from behind.

Anko was surprised that her son wanted to know about his elemental affinity, elemental manipulation was a Jonin level skill. "Why do you want to know your elemental affinity gaki?" She asked her son while returning his hug.

"Well its something that Rokubi-sensei suggested, he said that it would help shed some light onto the nature of my swords." Ryld explained while unbuckling his swords and setting them on the table.

Anko nodded at her son, she knew that the Rokubi had never steered him wrong when it came to any of his training before so she went into her shinobi supply closet and pulled out a sheet of chakra paper. "Here gaki, this will show your elemental affinity, you just hold it and push a little chakra into it like this." Anko explained while pushing a little of her chakra into the paper, the paper suddenly caught fire on the ends and turned to dust in the middle. "See gaki, this means that I have a fire and earth affinity. Now if the paper gets wet, it means you have a water affinity, if it splits in half then you have wind, and if it crumbles up then you have lightning. So lets see what you have gaki." Anko said and handed Ryld a slip of chakra paper.

Ryld took the paper and channeled a bit of his chakra into it. The paper quickly shredded into tiny pieces and all the pieces quickly burst into flames. The heat was enough that only a slight sprinkling of ash fell onto the floor. Both Ryld and Anko were very surprised by the violent reaction from the chakra paper. "Wow gaki, you apparently have crazy strong wind and fire affinities, most people only have one until they get older and can learn a second." Anko said while looking at the remains of the chakra paper, she suddenly snapped her fingers and looked at her son. "Hey I think I figured something out gaki. The names of your swords, they're tied to your elemental affinities. Ill just bet that if you channel wind chakra into Kamikaze and fire chakra into Oni-kaji you'll get some really awesome results." Anko said while grinning maniacally at her adopted son.

Ryld currently had an identical grin on his face while looking at his mother. He quickly grabbed his katana off the table and unsheathed them and started to channel some of his chakra into each of the blades. Kamikaze started glowing in a soft blue light when he channeled his chakra into it, and Oni-kaji glowed a dark red. "I'm going to have to train hard with these while channeling chakra into them. These swords are the coolest things I've ever seen." Ryld said while breaking his chakra flow to the blades and laughing.

For the rest of the week Ryld continued training his Kenjutsu skills with Tenten, while also doing some low level elemental training with his mother so that he could fully use his new weapons in real combat. The week went by fast for the young Jinchuuriki, as he was getting better with his Kenjutsu and his elemental manipulation. His Kenjutsu training progressed a lot faster than his elemental manipulation training, of course elemental manipulation was a Jonin skill, but he was able to put a decent nick into a leaf with his wind chakra and start to burn the center of a leaf with his fire chakra.

By the end of the week he could channel both types of chakra into his swords at the same time, it was an impressive display when he was training with his swords. He had been channeling both his wind and fire chakra into their respective blades; Oni-kaji was completely covered in reddish black flames, while Kamikaze was coated in bluish white wind energy. By mere accident he had discovered that he could hurl the energy from his blades for longer range attacks, the wind energy from kamikaze was ridiculously sharp and allowed him to cut a large boulder completely in half, while the fire energy from Oni-kaji was intense enough then he turned a large tree into nothing more than a smoldering black pile of charcoal.

Ryld decided to keep the elemental nature of his weapons a secret, Anko readily agreed with him on this as she knew that if the civilian council found out about it they would try to take the blades away from him since most of them hated her and by extension her son. Finally the week passed and Ryld was once again inside of the Konoha Shinobi academy with the rest of his graduating class all waiting for Iruka to appear and name off their teams.

Ryld had just walked into the classroom and saw the resident banshee of his class yelling at Naruto. "Naruto-baka what are you doing here? This place is for people who actually graduated, not failures like you." She screamed heatedly at the young blond. Naruto looked slightly crestfallen that his childhood crush was treating him like this.

"I did graduate Sakura-chan. Iruka-sensei let me graduate, see I have my Hitae-ate and everything." Naruto said while pointing at the Konoha hitae-ate on his forehead.

Ryld was somewhat surprised that his friend had found a way to pass, and walked up to him and gave him a slap on he back. "Great job Naruto, why didn't you come over and let me know, I know mom and me would have celebrated with you on your graduation." Ryld said to his friend.

Naruto looked a little abashed at the attention he was getting. "It's not that big of a deal. I didn't want to mess with your family time Ryld, I know you and your mom are really close." Naruto said with his usual goofy grin, this answer caused Ryld to break out in his own wolfish grin and the two friends gave a quick high-five to each other.

Unknown to Ryld and Naruto, Sasuke had noticed the two blades attached to Ryld's waist and mostly hidden under his trench coat. He walked up to Ryld and grabbed his shoulder and spun him around. "Hey dobe, what do you have there under your coat." Sasuke asked while pulling Ryld's coat to the side. All eyes in the room were quickly drawn to the blue-black haired Genin. They all immediately saw the two pristine looking swords that Ryld had strapped to his sides.

Ryld pushed Sasuke's hand away from him and readjusted his coat. "Who the hell are you calling dobe you ass clown? Rookie of the year hasn't been determined yet, Iruka-sensei will tell us that once he gets here, and get the hell off my coat teme." Ryld said contemptuously to the last Uchiha.

Sasuke had seen the magnificent looking blades that Ryld was wearing and narrowed his eyes at the trench coat wearing Genin. "Where did you get swords like those dobe? I know your snake bitch mother couldn't have afforded them. You should give those swords to me, since you obviously don't have the skill to use them, unlike an Uchiha." He said condescendingly, while having a cocky smirk on his face.

Ryld narrowed his golden eyes at the last Uchiha's comments, especially the one about his mother. Before Sasuke knew what happened Ryld had the black blade of Oni-kaji right up against his throat and was putting a little bit of pressure behind it, almost enough to cut his skin. "I'm sorry Sasuke-teme, I must have misheard you just there, it sounded to me like you insulted not only my skills as a shinobi, but also my mother whom I love very dearly. I think that you need to go away right now and not speak to me again." Ryld said all of this while holding Sasuke's gaze in his own and leaking Killing Intent at his fellow Genin.

When Ryld took the blade away from Sasuke's throat the young Uchiha slowly released a breath he hadn't realized he was holding. He reached his hand up to touch his neck where the blade had been and felt a small line of blood running down his neck. Despite his pride he quickly walked away from the group standing in the middle of the room and took his seat again.

Sakura was beside herself with what she had just seen, she turned to where Ryld was standing, who had just finished re-sheathing his blade and stomped up to him. "YOU BAKA! You can't treat Sasuke-kun like that. He's your better in every way. If he says you should give him your swords then you should give them to him." Sakura screamed at the golden-eyed boy in front of her, while cocking back her fist to punch him.

Ryld just looked sideways at Sakura and before she could move she had the tip of Kamikaze's electric blue blade pointing at her sternum. Ryld was also giving her a dose of the same KI that he had given to Sasuke. Sakura paled visibly at the sight of the sword and being subjected to the boys KI and dropped her hand. "You know Sakura, why don't you just shut the fuck up. That stupid teme of yours just demanded my swords like it was his right to have them. These swords are mine, my mother got these for me and no one, not Sasuke-teme, not you, not the damn Hokage himself is going to take these away from me. Is that understood?" Ryld asked her after finally stopping the KI he had been directing at her. Sakura slumped visibly under Ryld's gaze.

The rest of the Genin in the classroom watched the scene with different reactions, Shino and Kiba both looked at their friend with shit eating grins on their faces, well Kiba had a grin Shino just had a raised eyebrow and a slight smirk, but for an Aburame that was the same thing. Ino at first had a scowl on her face directed at Ryld but by the time he was finished with both Sasuke and Sakura she also had a smile on her face, watching her rival be so totally defeated, and she was running an appraising eye over Ryld since he completely put Sasuke in his place. The young blonde started thinking about what she had ever seen in Sasuke, he was a jerk who treated everyone like garbage since none of them were Uchiha like him. Tayuya had a grin to match Kiba's when Ryld put Sasuke in his place a grin that broke into full-blown laughter when he turned his attention on the pink haired cheerleader and put her in her place too. Nara Shikamaru hadn't even woken up during the entire encounter, but his best friend Akimichi Choji had actually stopped eating to watch both encounters. Hyuuga Hinata hadn't really been paying attention to Ryld; her focus was on the blonde boy standing next to him. And finally Sai just continued drawing on one of his many sketchpads.

After putting the teme and his cheerleader into their places Ryld just went and sat down in his usual spot in the back of the class, giving his friends high-fives as he passed them. '**You handled both of them very well Cub. That Uchiha kid is a walking ass bag and that banshee cheerleader of his is no better.**' Rokubi chuckled from inside Ryld's head. Ryld silently agreed with his tenant and went back to looking lazily around the room.

Ino and Tayuya both walked over to him and sat down in front of him before turning around to face him. Ryld raised an eyebrow at the two girls. Ino looked at him. "So Ryld I saw what you did with Sasuke and forehead, I was mad at first, but they both deserved it." Ino said while grinning at Ryld.

Tayuya had an even bigger grin on her face than Ino. "Ino is right, that banshee bitch, and her gay ass boyfriend needed to be put in their places. I haven't seen anything that funny in years." All three of them started laughing about what had happened.

Iruka walked into the classroom and looked around at the assembled Genin. "Alright, all of you have graduated and are now going to be divided into teams of three, then you all will meet your Jonin sensei. Now before I read out your team assignments I want to give out the title of Rookie of the Year. Rookie if the year is a tie between Uchiha Sasuke and Mitarashi Ryld. The title of Top Kunoichi goes to Tayuya. The teams are as follows…" Iruka went through several teams and finally. "Team Six will be Mitarashi Ryld, Yamanaka Ino, and Tayuya. You Jonin Sensei will be Yamashiro Aoba." Ryld, Ino, and Tayuya all shared a grin at being put onto the same team together.

Iruka continued naming off teams. "Team Seven will be Uchiha Sasuke, Haruno Sakura, and Sai, your Jonin sensei will be Hatake Kakashi." Sakura yelled out about love conquering all since she got put onto a team with Sasuke.

"Team Eight will be Inuzuka Kiba, Hyuuga Hinata, and Uzumaki Naruto. Your Jonin sensei will be Yuhi Kurenai. Team nine is still active so finally Team Ten will be Aburame Shino, Nara Shikamaru, and Akimichi Choji. Your Jonin sensei will be Sarutobi Asuma. Now you will all meet your respective sensei's after lunch, now you are all dismissed." Iruka said.

The newly formed teams all left the classroom and went out into the courtyard for lunch. Ryld and his new Kunoichi teammates all went out into the courtyard to sit together. Ryld had brought a box lunch of sushi with him and had a few Dango for desert. Tayuya had brought a large bowl of black bean soup with ham in it, and Ino was only picking at he plain salad.

Ryld looked at Ino in confusion at he choice of meal. "Hey Ino, aren't you going to eat something more that that? You really should eat more protein so that you can keep your strength up." Ryld commented while eating one of the salmon sushi roll in his boxed lunch.

Ino shook her head. "No I need to keep in shape, I'm on a diet. I'll get fat if I eat all the time." She explained.

Ryld shook his head. "Are you nuts? As long as your serious about it your ninja training will keep you in shape, and dieting like you are will only serve to reduce your energy and your chakra reserves. You wont have the stamina to really keep up in your training, not to mention that you won't be able to fight as well." Ryld explained to the confused looking Kunoichi.

"What are you talking about? If I don't diet I will get fat. Then ill be completely useless as a Kunoichi." Ino said to her two new teammates.

Ryld and Tayuya both looked at their blonde teammate like she was going crazy. "Ino let me ask you a question. You know my mom right?" Ryld asked, and Ino nodded slowly. "Do you think that she is a strong Kunoichi? Do you think that you would like to look like her one day?" Ino nodded again to Ryld's question. "Well you should see her eat sometime. She eats tons of sweet Dango every day; she actually eats more than I do. The reason my mom looks the way she does is because she trains constantly. She is always in the Forest of Death training and running around. Not to mention all the missions she gets sent on by the Hokage. If you want to look like my mom does then you just have to take your ninja training seriously." Ryld explained to his blonde teammate.

Ino looked thoughtful for a few minutes, what Ryld said actually made sense. Thinking back she realized that she had never really taken her academy training seriously. She had always been worried about being popular and looking good. "Well I guess now is my chance to do what your saying. Do you think that if I start taking my training seriously I'll get to be as strong as your mom Ryld-kun?"

Ryld nodded his head at his new teammate. He looked over at his other teammate. Tayuya was looking at both Ryld and Ino with an appraising eye while eating her soup. "So what do you two think our fucking sensei is going to be like? I hope he isn't some limp dick asshole who acts like a douche bag." Ryld just grinned at the read heads foulmouthed attitude. Ino frowned at Tayuya for a moment, but then remembered that she had always been like this. Tayuya was the most foulmouthed student in the whole academy.

The three teammates finished up their lunch, Ryld sharing some of his sushi and Dango with Ino since her lunch was far from filling, and headed back into the classroom so that they could wait for their new Jonin sensei. Once they got into the classroom the new team all sat together near some of their other friends. They sat by the newly formed Team Eight. They saw Hinata sitting near Naruto with a blush on her face. Ryld noticed that the bluenette's blush seemed to increase whenever she looked at the blonde Jinchuuriki, who seemed to be completely oblivious to what he was doing to his teammate. Noticing all of this Ryld decided to mention it to his friend to see if he realized what was going on.

Slowly all of the teams were taken away by their new Jonin sensei. Ryld and his team were still sitting and waiting when a man came walking into the classroom. He was wearing the standard Jonin garb, blue shinobi pants and sandals, long sleeve blue shirt, a Jonin flak jacket, he had on a pair of small rimmed sunglasses, his hitae-ate was cocked at a slight angle on his forehead and he had spiky black hair. "I am Yamashiro Aoba, I am the Jonin sensei for Team Six. Will Mitarashi Ryld, Yamanaka Ino, and Tayuya please meet me on the roof in five minutes." With that the man promptly disappeared in a puff of smoke.

Ryld and his team were stunned for a minute. "Must have been a Kage Bunshin _(Shadow clone)_. Well guys lets go up to the roof so we can meet our new sensei." Ryld said to his new teammates, having already slipped unconsciously into the role of squad leader. Both Tayuya and Ino followed the boy up to the roof to meet their new sensei.

They found the man sitting on the railing of the roof. He cocked his head towards his new Genin squad thinking back to how he had gotten all three of the students he wanted to teach

_Flashback: Several days ago, inside the Hokage's viewing room_

_The group of Jonin was standing with the Sandaime Hokage as he looked through his viewing globe at several of the newly appointed Genin. One man with spiked up silver hair and his Hitae-ate covering his right eye stepped forward. "I Hatake Kakashi would like to request the team of Uchiha Sasuke, Inuzuka Kiba, and Mitarashi Ryld, they would make an exemplary direct combat squad." The cycloptic Jonin said to the Hokage. _

_Aoba stepped forward towards the Hokage. "I Yamashiro Aoba, request the team of Yamanaka Ino, Tayuya, and Mitarashi Ryld. I believe their mix of skills will make for an incredibly balanced team. Ryld has good Ninjutsu skills, Tayuya has her summons and Genjutsu, and Ino's clan jutsu would make for a balanced and very potent combination."_

_The remaining Jonin all stepped forwards with their requests for teams and their reasons behind them. Sarutobi finally gave his final orders to the Jonin and assigned them their teams. Some, like Kakashi looked slightly crestfallen at having the teams they wanted altered, but most took it all in stride. A few, like Aoba were extremely happy at having exactly the team they asked for, but managed to hide their feelings for the sake of their fellow Jonin._

_End Flashback_

Ryld, Tayuya, and Ino all looked at their new Jonin Sensei as he leaned against the railing around the roof. "Well now that we are all here, lets introduce ourselves. My name is Yamashiro Aoba. I am your new Jonin sensei. Some things I like include playing Shogi and eating sushi, some things I dislike are people who threaten the village, and those who try to bully others. Finally my dream is to become the head of the ANBU training center. Now why don't you all take a turn, lets start with you." Aoba said pointing at Ryld.

"My name is Mitarashi Ryld. Some of the things I like are training in Kenjutsu, eating Dango and spending time with my mother. Some things I dislike are the way that some people are treated just because they are different or used to be associated with bad people, and my dream for the future is to be the greatest protector this village has ever had." Ryld finished and sat down while looking at his new sensei.

Tayuya who was sitting next to him stood up. "My name is Tayuya. Things that I like are music of almost all kinds, and training. My dislikes are people who can't handle the way I fucking talk, and people who threaten my fucking friends. My dream, well I don't really fucking have one, but maybe I will." With that the foulmouthed red head sat back down.

Ino finally stood up and nervously at her teammates and her sensei. "My name is Yamanaka Ino. My likes, well I've been thinking about things that I like and I'm not really sure the things I liked in the academy apply anymore in the real world, the things I dislike are people who treat others badly, and finally my dream is to be a Kunoichi as powerful as the legendary Sannin Tsunade."

Aoba nodded sagely at his new students. 'Well this was certainly very informative, it seems that Ino has decided to grow out of the fan girl phase of her life and re-evaluate what is important. Looks like I might have to help Tayuya figure out something to really strive for, and Ryld, well it seems like he already has his head square on his shoulders.' "Thank you all, now that we've all introduced ourselves its time for you to prepare for your test. It will be tomorrow, meet at training ground six tomorrow morning at eight am."

"What do you mean test Aoba-sensei? We already passed our final exam from the academy." Ino said looking a bit confused.

"It's fucking obvious Ino. There must be a limit to the number of god damned Genin that are allowed to actually graduate. If we don't pass this stupid ass test then we get sent back to the fucking academy. Right Aoba-sensei?" Tayuya stated with her usual amount of foul language.

"Tayuya is correct Ino. The academy test was to make sure you were good enough to be considered as Genin, the test tomorrow will determine if you are truly ready to be Shinobi, so those of you that fail the test will be put back into the academy for remedial training." Aoba explained to his new squad of Genin. 'However since I personally picked all three of you for my squad you should have no real problem passing my little test.' Aoba thought to himself. "Now that you understand, you can all go home. Meet at training ground six at eight in the morning and we will begin your test." With that Aoba disappeared in a leaf Shunshin, leaving the three Genin alone.

Ryld turned towards his new teammates, already having an idea about what the test was really for. "Alright you guys why don't we all go get something to eat and then discuss what were going to do with this test tomorrow." Ryld suggested to the two Kunoichi. Both of them agreed and they all left together.

"My mom is making some of her homemade Tako yaki _(Octopus dumplings) _for supper tonight, why don't we all go over to my house to eat, then we can plan out what to do in our test tomorrow." Ino suggested to her new teammates. Both Ryld and Tayuya agreed and they al started heading towards the Yamanaka house. Ino turned towards her fellow Kunoichi a bit nervously. "Hey Tayuya, is there any way that you can tone down the language while you're at my house? It doesn't bother me or my dad, but my mom hate it when anyone uses bad language." Ino asked her red headed teammate.

"Abso-fucking-lutely Ino. I can keep it down for your mom, I don't really feel like getting kicked out of you house for running off at the mouth." Tayuya said with a laugh for her blonde friend.

The three young ninja finally arrived at the Yamanaka house and were greeted by Ino's mother, a kind looking lady with long blonde hair and the exact same shade of blue-green eyes that Ino had. "Hi there sweetie, are these your new teammates. Welcome both of you, I was just getting ready to set the table, why don't you al come inside and make yourselves comfortable while I finish getting everything ready. Oh and Ino honey, your father just called, he is getting off work early tonight so he will be home for dinner."

Ino's face lit up at the mention of her father being home for dinner, as the head of the Torture & Interrogation division of Konoha he was often busy and not always able to come home until extremely late. She beamed a smile at her mom at the good news and went to help her with setting the table for dinner.

Ryld took off his coat and started to hang it on the coat rack before remembering the weight seals and deactivating them, he didn't want to break the furniture with his one hundred pound coat. He also unbuckled his swords and set them into the holder next to the door. _(After all you know that shinobi families have stuff like that set up for their shinobi guests)._

Tayuya watched Ryld as he sat the swords down on the holder, she hadn't really gotten a good look at the swords during his little display at the academy, but now that she looked at them she could tell the amazing quality of their craftsmanship. "These swords are really amazing Ryld-kun. Where did you get them?" She asked her blue-black haired teammate.

"Well my mom had them made when I was little and gave them to me once as a present for graduating from the academy. This one is Oni-kaji." He said hefting the red-sheathed blade. "And this is Kamikaze." He finished hefting the white-sheathed sword.

"Well those are certainly very impressive looking swords young man, but you know what they say, the tool is only as good as the ninja that wields it." Said a deep masculine voice behind the two Genin. Both turned to see a large man in a black trench coat and a Konoha Hitae-ate.

Ryld spoke up first. "Kon'nichiwa, my name is Mitarashi Ryld, and this is Tayuya. You must be Ino's father, we are her new teammates." Ryld said while both youths bowed to the elder Yamanaka, causing him to smile.

"Kon'nichiwa to both you as well, I am indeed Ino's father, Yamanaka Inoichi. So you are going to be my daughter's teammates. I honestly expected a new incarnation of the Ino-Shika-Cho trio as her team." Noting the confused looks on the two young peoples faces Inoichi explained. "You see when I was younger I was on a team with Nara Shikaku, and Akimichi Chomaru. Now since both of their sons are in the same graduating class as my daughter I figured that one of the Jonin sensei would attempt to recreate our team in the new generation. Obviously that hasn't happened but I am glad that my daughter got put on the same team as both of you, I have read your reports and I believe that your skill sets will work well with my daughter's, provided that you can make her take her training seriously."

"DAD! Stop embarrassing me in front of my new team. I am going to take my training seriously. In fact after we get done with dinner and prepping for our test tomorrow, you are going to start teaching me a new Jutsu." Ino said to her father with her hands on her hips and her head cocked slightly to the side.

Inoichi smiled at seeing his daughter so enthusiastic about training. With that the entire group sat down to eat. Ino's mother, Mikki, made some amazing Tako Yaki for them all to eat, along with rice and sauces to dip them in. For desert she had some green tea ice cream for everyone. Both Mikki and Inoichi were pleasantly surprised when their daughter actually ate the food instead of picking at a plain salad like she normally would, when asked about it she said that it was Ryld's idea for her to actually eat something so that she has the energy to train harder.

After finishing dinner the three Genin went into the living room of the house to discuss the test they were going to take in the morning. Ryld started explaining his idea about the test to his teammates. "I think that this test is probably going to be a fight with our sensei so that he can determine how strong we are. Since we all know we cant take on a full Jonin alone, we're going to have to work together to come up with a way to hopefully beat him, or at the very least prove that we are strong enough to be considered ninja." Both of his teammates nodded their heads at Ryld's explanation, it all made sense to both of them.

"Now what kind of Jutsu do you guys know aside from the academy basics?" He asked both of his teammates.

Tayuya answered first. "Well I know some fairly good Genjutsu, plus I have my special summons that I control with my flute. My Taijutsu sucks, and so does my Ninjutsu." Tayuya explained quietly.

Ryld turned towards Ino. "Well I know my clan technique, the Shinranshin no Jutsu (Mind Body Disturbance Technique). I'm decent at Taijutsu, and I'm good at breaking Genjutsu, even some of the really high level ones, I think it's because I have my clans mind power jutsu."

Ryld was thought for a few minutes before answering. "Okay we can work with this. I know one of my mom's favorite jutsu the Seneijashu _(Striking shadow snakes)_ and I'm pretty good at Kenjutsu, so it looks like I'm our front line fighter. Ino you are going to be our mid range specialist with your Clan jutsu, and hopefully you can learn some elemental jutsu to help out. Ask your dad if he has any Chakra paper so you can find you affinity, it will make choosing elemental jutsu easier. Finally Tayuya you are going to be our long range specialist since your Taijutsu is not very good, you make up for it with your Genjutsu and your summons though, you just want to stay out of the heat of battle since you said that you have to control them with your flute." Ryld explained to his new team, both of them were nodding their heads at his explanation.

"Maybe if we are lucky I can catch Aoba-sensei with my Seneijashu or Tayuya can get him in a Genjutsu so that Ino can use her Shinranshin no Jutsu on him and take over his body." Ryld finished his explanation for hopefully taking on their new sensei.

Inoichi was listening to Ryld explain his ideas for the survival test with their sensei and had to admit it sounded like a really good plan. If they could catch their sensei off guard then it would be possible to Ino to use her Shinranshin no Jutsu to take over his mind.

After they finished their team meeting, the three Genin all left the living room and Ino walked her new teammates to the door. "Okay you guys I will see you tomorrow at the training ground." Ino said to her teammates as she waived to them.

"Hey Ino, just remember to have a good breakfast so that you have energy, I'm pretty sure we're all going to need it." Ryld said with a waive at his blonde teammate.

As Ino turned back towards her parents she caught her father's eye. "Okay dad lets get started, I am going to take Ryld's advice and have you test my elemental affinity, and hopefully you can teach me a simple jutsu of that type before tomorrow." Ino said to her father.

Inoichi nodded at his daughter and pulled out a piece of chakra paper and handed it to his daughter. Ino channeled a small amount of chakra into the paper. It got wet and water started dripping onto the floor. "So does this mean that I have the water element?" Ino asked her father, who nodded at his daughter. "So what water Jutsu can you teach me Dad?"

Inoichi thought about it and decided to teach his daughter the Suiton: Teppodama _(Water Release: Gunshot)_. The two ninja went into their backyard and started on the Suiton: Teppodama. Since Ino had extremely good chakra control she actually got the Jutsu down quickly. She didn't have it perfected but was able to send out a decent sized water bullet. Once Ino had the Jutsu mostly completed she took a long shower and finally went to bed.

The next morning the newly formed Team Six awaited their Jonin sensei at training ground six. Aoba was waiting for his new Genin team at their training ground. Once all three were assembled he walked over to them. Ino was dressed in a purple halter-top that left her midriff bare, along with a set of purple skirt that was slit up to her hips on both sides. She also had a pair of black spandex shorts on under her skirt and blue shinobi sandals. She had her hitae-ate wrapped around her waist as a belt.

Tayuya was wearing a long sleeve mesh undershirt and a dark green tank top with a yin-yang on the center, a pair of black spandex pants with her flute holstered on her right hip and a kunai holster on her left. She also wore a pair of black shinobi sandals, and her Hitae-ate around her neck.

Ryld was wearing his usual shinobi garb, a short sleeve mesh shirt, with a dark red muscle shirt over it, a pair of black ANBU style pants, black shinobi sandals, and his black trench coat and his Hitae-ate on his forehead.

Aoba looked over his new Genin team. "Well now that you are all here we can start your final test. Now you all have until noon to get one of these bells from me." Aoba held up two silver bells on short red strings. "If you fail to get a bell from me in the allotted time you will be sent back to the academy for additional training. As I am sure you can see there are only two bells, this means that no matter what one of you will be sent back to the academy. Now that I have explained everything the test will begin."

**End Chapter Two**


	3. Fresh Genin

**CHAPTER THREE: FRESH GENIN**

"Now that I have explained everything. The test will begin." Aoba said looking at his new Genin team.

The three Genin looked at their sensei in disbelief. One of them would have to go back to the academy no matter what happened? Ryld immediately decided that if one of them had to go back to the academy he would take the fall for his teammates and go back to the academy.

Ryld looked over at his teammates. "Lets do this, just like we talked about." Both Tayuya and Ino nodded and they all squared off with their new sensei. Ryld quickly drew his swords and launched himself at his new sensei. Ino stayed back behind her teammate as support and Tayuya backed up some and bit her left thumb to draw blood.

She quickly went through a series of hand seals before brining her hand down. "Kuchiyose no Jutsu_ (Summoning Technique)_." She yelled and suddenly there was a plume of smoke there was a large Doki _(__Angry Demon)_ standing next to her. The Doki had long brown hair that completely covered its face, a black body suit and was carrying a large metal club. Tayuya quickly brought her flute up to her mouth and started playing it. The Doki immediately rushed forward past Ino and started attacking their sensei along with Ryld.

Aoba was surprised by the speed and precision his team displayed in attacking him. He quickly dodged a sword slash by Ryld and pulled out a kunai to block the powerful swing from Tayuya's summoned Doki. Using a quick Kariwimi Aoba changed places with a Kage Bunshin he created just before it was impaled from behind by Ryld's Oni-kaji and burst into smoke.

Ryld cursed for being tricked by a Kage Bunshin, he quickly turned around and tried to find where his sensei had gone. The rest of his team was doing the same while Tayuya's Doki was simply standing around. Suddenly there were lots of bird cries around them and before they could react there were thousands of crows flying through their training area. Ryld thought that it was a Genjutsu and quickly tried to push his chakra out from his body to dispel it. "KAI!" He yelled and released his chakra, however the birds did not vanish.

Suddenly both Tayuya and Ryld heard their third teammate yelling out. "Suiton: Teppodama." Before they heard a large watery explosion to their left. Suddenly the birds all vanished and they saw their sensei standing next to a tree that had been destroyed by Ino's water jutsu. Tayuya quickly brought her flute back up to her mouth and continued playing. Her Doki dashed back towards Aoba and started attacking him again.

Ryld decided to not attack his sensei directly again and lifter up his right arm. "Seneijashu." He shouted and four large snakes slithered out of the sleeves of his coat and raced towards his sensei.

Aoba saw the snakes coming and quickly dodged away from the Doki attacking him. He went through a quick set of hand seals and yelled out. "Katon: Endan _(Fire Release: Fire Ball)_." A medium sized ball of flame shot from his mouth and struck the snakes that Ryld had been sending at him. Two were quickly immolated but the remaining two closed the distance and wrapped around their sensei's legs. Tayuya changed her tune on her flute and her Doki quickly rushed their sensei and instead of attacking him wrapped its big arms around him and held him.

Ino quickly understood and went through another set of hand seals. "Shinranshin no Jutsu _(Mind Body Disturbance Technique)_." As soon as she finished her jutsu the young Yamanaka's body went completely limp and fell over, at the same time Aoba's body stiffened and he suddenly had a grin on his face.

"I have him, it's over." Aoba said in a slightly higher pitched voice. Ryld released his jutsu and the snakes disappeared and Tayuya played her flute for a moment to make her Doki let go and then dismissed him in a cloud of smoke. Ryld then walked over to Aoba and took both of the bells from his waist. Aoba slumped slightly and then Ino got back up again and walked towards her two teammates while all three were grinning from ear to ear.

"Well done team, you showed excellent teamwork today, and being able to take down your Jonin sensei on your first try is impressive. Now that you have the bells, here is the real question. Who gets to stay, and who goes back to the academy for training?" Aoba asked his new Genin team.

The three previously grinning Genin all dropped their smiles and looked at each other, none of them wanted to go back to the academy, and none of them wanted to break up their new team. Ryld, as self imposed team leader decided to follow through with his plan. "Well sensei, since it was really Tayuya and Ino that got most of this accomplished they can have the bells." He said, tossing a bell to each of his teammates.

Tayuya caught hers and immediately shook her head. "No way Ryld. You were the one that came up with the plan for us all to work together and how. If anyone doesn't need to be here its me. Ino your Suiton: Teppodama was what let us all know where Aoba-sensei was hiding so that we could attack."

Ino was shaking her head before Tayuya even finished. "No way Tayuya, you and Ryld both deserve to be here, I mean look at me. I never took my training seriously until just the last day or two, and if you guys hadn't held sensei I would have never been able to grab his with my Shinranshin no Jutsu. You guys should take these bells, this time while I'm at the academy I will take it seriously." The young blond said with a note of confidence.

Aoba was very proud of how his students behaved, both during their fight and now afterwards. "Congratulations Team Six, you all pass." He said with a huge smile on his face. It took a moment for his words to sink in before all three of them broke out in grins.

Ino, while smiling at being passed, was still confused. "Sensei how did we all pass? I thought that only two of us could pass the test." She asked her grinning sensei.

Ryld suddenly face-palmed and shouted. "Of course! I am such a fucking retard!" Startling his teammates and his sensei. "Ino it is obvious, why didn't I think of it sooner. The bell test was a test within a test." He said to the blonde, who seemed even more confused by his statement.

"Let me explain, the test was a two part test. The first part was getting the bells from Aoba-sensei. The second part was figuring out who got to stay and who had to go back to the academy, but the second part has a twist. Have either of you ever heard of a Konoha shinobi team that wasn't a four man cell?" Ryld asked his friends, when they shook their heads he continued. "The reason is because they don't exist. The reason that there were only two bells was because sensei was trying to divide us, to see if we could handle the pressure of such an extreme decision. Isn't that right sensei?" Ryld asked his grinning sensei.

Aoba nodded at Ryld's explanation of the situation. "Ryld is correct, I was trying to play Devil's advocate with the three of you to see if you would place your own goals above those of the team. If you had then I would have failed you for it, but none of you did so now you are all officially Genin of Konoha. Meet me here tomorrow morning at ten a.m. and we will begin our missions." With that the sunglasses wearing Jonin disappeared in a swirl of leaves.

Over the next few weeks the newly made Genin teams was placed into their own personal hell, D-Ranked missions. They all thought that since they were now ninja they would be put into missions where they went out and did things. Unfortunately for them, all new Genin had to do a certain amount of D-Ranked missions before they were allowed to do missions outside of the village. D-Ranked missions usually consisted of doing different types of chores around the village. These missions consisted of everything from painting fences, to walking dogs, and finally the bane of all new Genin, capturing Tora, the "demon" cat belonging to the Daymio's wife.

When they weren't doing their missions Team Six was sending a lot of time training. The team members were all working on their personal weaknesses. Ino was working on increasing her Suiton affinity by working on another new Suiton jutsu, the Suiton: Sujinheki (_Water Release: Water Encampment Wall_); Tayuya was sparring with one of their sensei's Kage Bunshin to improve her Taijutsu skill, and Ryld was working on two of his new ninjutsu and his chakra control. Since he knew his elemental affinities, his mother had given him a few scrolls with some low level Katon and Fuuton jutsu. The first was the Katon: Hitama (Fire Release: _Flame Shot_). The other jutsu he was currently working on was the Fuuton: Daitoppa (Wind Release: _Great Breakthrough_).

Ryld was also working by himself with Tenten on his Kenjutsu. He was starting to get fairly good at the Kazan style Kenjutsu. He was even starting to create a few moves of his own. One of the moves he was currently trying to perfect was called Ryu Tatsumaki _(Dragon Twister)_, this Kenjutsu technique was for when he was surrounded and it involved Ryld holding Oni-kaji in a reverse grip while spinning around so that no matter where his opponents tried to attack from they were met with his steel. This Kenjutsu technique was even more effective when he channeled his elemental chakra into his blades creating a fiery tornado around the Genin. However he only worked on his elemental Kenjutsu when he was alone, he didn't want anyone knowing about the special properties of his blades just yet.

Team Six was currently in the Hokage's office waiting for their next mission assignment. Sarutobi was looking over the missions available for the young Genin team. All three of them had grown immensely in the month since they had graduated from the academy. Ino was looking like a capable kunoichi and not a fan girl, Tayuya's Taijutsu had increased dramatically under Aoba, and Ryld was turning into a good squad leader for his team.

"So Aoba, do you think that your team is ready for a more challenging mission?" Sarutobi asked the Jonin sensei.

Aoba smiled and adjusted his sunglasses before answering. "Yes Hokage-sama, I believe that my team is definitely ready for a higher ranking mission. What sort of mission do you have for us?" Aoba asked.

The Hokage looked over the missions he had. He was debating between giving them a simple bandit-clearing mission, and an escort mission for a bridge builder. Just as he was deciding, the door burst open and in walked the newly formed Team Eight walked in with their Jonin sensei Yuhi Kurenai. Sarutobi smiled at the changes in this team as well.

Naruto no longer wore his "Kill Me" orange jump suit he had worn in the academy. Instead he wore a pair of black ANBU style pants and a black coat with some burnt orange tribal lines running down the chest and arms. Hinata looked a great deal more confident than she had before, and Kiba seemed to have somewhat gotten over his immature attitude thanks to his rivalry with Naruto.

"Hey Ojii-san we finished our mission, but we want a higher mission than some lame D-Ranks, we've been doing nothing but those for the last month. We're ready for better missions." Naruto said as he walked into the Hokage's office. Once he walked in he noticed Team Six standing in the office and walked up to them. "Hey guys what's up?" He said as he gave Ino and Tayuya a surprisingly elegant bow, causing both of them to blush slightly, and gave Ryld his foxy grin and a knuckle bump.

"Not much, Aoba-sensei is just trying to get us a C-Rank mission, same as you. Hokage-sama was just about to give us his answer when u guys came in." Ryld answered while Sarutobi just watched the two Jinchuuriki and smiled at their interaction, he had decided after meeting Ryld, and reading the scroll his mother had, that he would reveal to Naruto his burden as the Jincuuriki for the Kyuubi no Kitsune, along with Ryld's own status as the Jinchuuriki of the Rokubi no Okami. Naruto had taken the news surprisingly well all things considered. He believed that part of the reason he took it so well was because of Ryld and Anko.

"I see you finally got rid of those horrible orange jumpsuits Naruto. I swear you looked like a walking 'Kill Me' sign wearing those." Ino said to her fellow blonde.

Naruto was rubbing the back of his head while grinning at his teammates. "You can thank Hinata-chan for that. After our meeting with Kurenai-sensei she decided that she hated the clothes I was wearing and took me to the tailor where she gets all of her ninja clothes made and had these made for me. I agree with her that they look a lot better, but I told her I had to have at least some orange in them." Naruto said while laughing. Hinata blushed at the praise her teammate and crush had given her.

"Well while this is all very entertaining I believe that I have made my decision on your missions. Team Six; you will get this C-Ranked bandit-clearing mission a few day out from the village. Team eight, you will be getting this escort mission for a famous bridge builder in the Nami no kuni (_Wave Country_)." The Sandaime said while handing the two Jonin sensei their respective mission scrolls. "Now you are all dismissed."

With that announcement all of the Genin and the two Jonin left the Hokage's office. Aoba got his teams attention. "Alright team, as the Hokage said this will be a simple bandit clearing mission. I must stress to you all that this mission will involve killing, however I think that you three are all mature enough to handle this sort of mission. Pack for a week long mission and meet at the East Konoha gate at ten tomorrow morning and we will leave then, for the rest of the day you are dismissed." With that Aoba disappeared with a Leaf Shunshin.

Kurenai listened as Aoba briefed his team on their mission and left and decided to do the same. "Alright everyone, our mission is an escort mission. Since it is only a C-Rank mission there should be no real trouble with it, we may have to face some bandits as well. However I do not want you three to take this mission lightly, as you just heard Aoba tell his team killing may be involved. I have trained you all as best as I can for this possibility so we should be alright. Meet at the East gate at ten and we will also be leaving. Pack for a month long journey, dismissed." The red-eyed Kunoichi said to her team as she also disappeared in a swirl or leaves.

Teams Six and Eight looked at each other before the two Jinchuuriki walked over to each other with identical grins and gave a each other a high-five. "This is going to be great, we both get our first C-Rank missions. We should all go out to celebrate. How about we all hit up Ichiraku for some ramen?" Naruto asked his fellow Genin.

"NO!" Came the emphatic response from all of the remaining five.

"Lets all go to that new restaurant that just opened up a few days ago, its supposed to have some of the best sushi and Yakitori in the whole village." Ino suggested and all the Genin quickly agreed, except Naruto who was still sad about being denied ramen.

"Yeah sounds great, I just have to go home first to change and tell my mom not to make dinner for me tonight." Kiba said. All the other Genin quickly stated similar needs, so they all decided to meet at the restaurant an hour later. They also decided to dress in their good clothes since the restaurant they were going to was an upscale establishment.

Ryld quickly went home to let his mother know what he was going to do. "Okaa-san are you home?" Ryld yelled once he got inside his house.

"Yeah Ryld I'm right here. If you're hungry I can start dinner soon." Anko said to her son as she was walking into the living room of their apartment.

"No thanks Kaa-san I'm going out with some of my friends, we just got our first C-Rank mission and we're going to celebrate." Ryld answered while unbuckling his swords and placing them on their stands. He then went to his room and quickly showered and changed out of his training clothes into a pair of black slacks, a black skin-tight shirt, that showed off his impressive muscles, and a red short sleeve button up shirt with black and gold tribal designs on it along with dragons and wolves. He left his Hitae-ate in his room but took his ninja ID with him in case he wanted to drink something alcoholic. He did not take his swords with him, however he did keep a pair of kunai hidden in storage seals he had placed on his pants in case he needed them just as his mother had taught him.

"Congratulations on your first C-Rank sochi. What kind of mission is it?" Anko asked as she watched her son get changed. She was extremely proud of her adopted son and the amount of progress he had made in his first month of being a Genin. His chakra reserves had always been ridiculously big, though not as high as Naruto's, she would estimate them at high Chunin or low Jonin level. She had been teaching him chakra control exercises since he was young so he had good control. He had absorbed her knowledge of Fuuinjutsu like a sponge and could already make storage seals she also had him working on making, and modifying, exploding tags. She had only been teaching him since he made Genin a month ago, and according to his sensei he seemed to be a natural leader and his two Kunoichi teammates really looked up to him.

"Well according to Aoba-sensei it's a bandit clearing mission, I'm not sure where. He said to pack what we needed for a week." Ryld explained while he was putting on the clothes he had laid out.

"That's good sochi, those kinds of missions are good for getting Genin their first real combat experience. Just remember even though they aren't shinobi don't underestimate them. If they have the chance they'll kill you just as quick as a shinobi, probably quicker because an enemy ninja might try to capture you. Don't hesitate to kill if you have to understood." Anko said to her adopted son in all seriousness. "And sochi, if things get bad you know that you can use _his_ chakra."

Ryld looked at his mother in surprise, he knew she was talking about Rokubi, he had been training with Rokubi to use his demonic chakra safely, he was actually able to use a full tail of his chakra with no real problem and two tails with only some difficulty. However if he went past two tails he would loose himself. Ryld nodded to his mother and told her goodbye and headed towards the restaurant where he was meeting his friends.

Ryld and Tayuya were the first to arrive at the restaurant. She like Ryld had changed when she got home. She was now wearing a green blouse and a black skirt that went to mid thigh and a pair of black heels. The outfit showed off her curves very nicely. Naruto and Hinata arrived together hand in hand, causing Ryld to raise and eyebrow and Naruto to give him a grin and a thumbs up. Hinata wore a black sleeveless dress that went down to her knees and had no back to it, she also wore a pair of black heels. Naruto was dressed in a pair of black slacks and a dark orange dress shirt.

Ino arrived next, she was wearing a little dark purple spaghetti strap dress with a cut out in the front that showed a good portion of her toned stomach. The dress stopped at mid thigh, and hugged her curves very snugly. Ryld had a hard time not staring at both of his teammates. Kiba was the last to arrive, dressed in a pair of kaki shorts and a grey button up shirt with the Inuzuka crest on the back. He had left Akamaru, his nindog companion, at the Inuzuka compound.

The six Genin all went into the restaurant together and were quickly shown seats. Some of the patrons glared at Naruto and Ryld, both of them being hated by a lot of the civilians due to Naruto being the Kyuubi Jinchuuriki and Ryld due to his mother being hated for being Orochimaru's apprentice. No one in the village aside from Ryld, Naruto, Anko, and the Hokage knew that Ryld was the Rokubi Jinchuuriki. However even though some of the patrons at the restaurant glared at the two, the actual staff was nice to them.

All six of the Genin quickly ordered their food and sat talking, Ryld and Tayuya had both decided that they wanted something strong to drink to celebrate their first C-Rank mission, so they ordered a small bottle of Sake to share. The six Rookie Genin spent the evening talking about what they had done and learned since graduating from the academy. At one point the girls all left to go "freshen up", once they were out of earshot Ryld turned to his fellow Jinchuuriki. "So Naruto, you and Hinata?" Ryld asked with his wolfish grin.

Naruto rubbed the back of his head and looked a little embarrassed while Kiba snickered. "Yeah, it was about three days after graduation from the academy. Kurenai-sensei took me off to the side and basically told me how Hinata felt, but that she was too shy to make a move. Once she explained it, it was pretty obvious considering how she always acted around me. I took her out on a date after that day's training and we've pretty much been together since." Naruto explained.

"That's good to hear buddy. I always noticed that she blushed when she was around you, but I didn't really notice it until the day of team placement. I was going to mention it to you but Kurenai-san took you guys away too quick. Guess I don't have to worry about it now." Ryld said with a laugh at the blonde.

"You don't know the half of it Ryld. Those two never seem to spend any time apart. It seems like their always holding hands or hugging or cuddling together. Kurenai-sensei makes sure they don't go too far though." Kiba said while laughing at Naruto's expression.

Once the girls got back the rest of the night went by fast for the rookie Genin. They finished their meal and all went home so they could be there on time. Ryld got back home and packed for a weeklong journey, after her got everything ready he sealed his things into a few different scrolls, a red scroll for his clothes and camping gear, a blue scroll for his food, and a black scroll for his extra weapons. Once he had all that stored he stored all of that into a single slightly larger scroll. He also got a completely separate scroll that he stored some of his training equipment and extra Fuuinjutsu supplies.

The next morning Ryld arrived at the east gate with his two teammates, all three were wearing their normal mission attire, and waited for their sensei. A few minutes later their sensei arrived to start their mission.

"Alright Team Six, we are leaving for our mission now, do you all have everything you need?" Aoba asked his team. Except for Ryld they were all carrying a travel backpack with a bedroll attached. Aoba gave him a curious look. "Ryld why don't you have anything with you?" Aoba asked the blue-black-haired Genin.

Ryld smirked and opened up his coat to show his sensei and his team his storage scrolls. "I have everything right here sensei. I even have few extra scrolls with a bunch of empty storage seals for everyone else if they want them."

Aoba raised an eyebrow at his student, he hadn't been aware that Ryld was proficient in Fuuinjutsu, but was glad that he had some knowledge of the subject. It was so incredibly useful that he was surprised the academy didn't teach it to the students, even if all they used it for was storage scrolls. "Very good Ryld, I know I will certainly take a storage scroll, its better than carrying this big pack around." Aoba said while taking off his pack and taking the scroll Ryld gave to him. He quickly sealed his pack into the scroll while Ino and Tayuya followed his example and grabbed scrolls from Ryld as well for their items.

"Alright team, our mission officially begins and we leave now." With that announcement Aoba and Team Six all sped away from the village for their mission.

**END CHAPTER THREE**


	4. The Mission Gets Complicated

**CHAPTER FOUR: THE MISSION GETS COMLICATED**

Team Six was heading off on their first C-Ranked mission. It was a fairly simple mission. They had been hired to take out a gang of bandits that had been attacking the small village of Omashu near the edge of Hi no Kuni (_Fire Country_). The bandits had only moved into the area recently and the village militia wasn't strong enough to deal with them.

It took the ninja two days to tree hop to the edge of the village. Omashu looked like it had recently seen an attack. There were some burned down buildings, as well as damage to other parts of the town. There they met the some of the militia before being escorted into the village and led to the village leader. The village leader was named Daisuke; he was an older man with a distinguished look about him. He had short-cropped iron-grey hair and a short beard. He wore simple farmers clothes, the only indication that he was more was a small silver medallion in the shape of a set of scales he wore around his neck. The medallion was his symbol of office that was given to every village leader.

Aoba went up to Daisuke and gave him a bow. "Greeting Daisuke-san, my name is Yamashiro Aoba, Jonin of Konohagakure no Sato. These are my students." He said pointing at the Genin. "This is Mitarashi Ryld, Yamanaka Ino, and Tayuya." The three Genin all bowed to the elder as Aoba mentioned their names. "I understand the general information about out mission but would you be kind enough to give me some specifics while my students check the perimeter around your village?" Aoba said to the elder.

The Genin team immediately went into action disappearing in bursts of speed to do as their sensei instructed. Once the three Genin were gone Daisuke turned back towards Aoba. "I fear the situation has deteriorated since I sent the message to your Hokage asking for assistance Aoba-san." Daisuke said to Aoba.

Aoba had a confused look on his face. "What do you mean Daisuke-san? If something has happened you could have simply sent another messenger hawk to explain." He said to the elderly village leader.

Daisuke shook his head. "I couldn't. A few weeks after the bandits moved into the area something happened. I'm not entirely sure what though. Normally the bandits would raid some of our outlying farmers for food or livestock. While it was annoying it was nothing we couldn't handle. Then suddenly they started getting more aggressive, and their numbers seemed to increase as well. Instead of sneaking to the farmers houses while they were out working and stealing a few minor things, they started appearing in the evening when everyone was home. They attacked people and took everything they had. They even killed a few people. So we brought all the outlying farmers into the village and mustered up the militia to defend us. Then the whole gang attacked the village. Out militia was able to stand up to them for a while, then suddenly a new group showed up and attacked as well. These men seemed to be well-trained and used swords, not clubs or daggers like the rest of them. There looked like samurai. They cut through our militia and proceeded to loot most of the village. Then He showed up. He said his name was Hinamora Gin, and he called himself the Tetsu Gōremu (_Iron Golem_)."

Aoba stiffened at the mention of the name and the title. He quickly pulled out his bingo book and flipped through a few pages. He showed Daisuke a picture in the book. "Is this the man you saw?" He asked the village leader.

Daisuke looked at the picture before nodding. "Yes this is the man who is leading the bandits. Do you know him?" He asked the Konoha Jonin.

Aoba shook his head. "Only by reputation. He is a Missing Samurai for Tetsu no Kuni (_Iron Country_). Listed as equivalent to an A-rank nuke-nin in the bingo book. This mission just got a lot more complicated. Why didn't you send a messenger hawk to inform us of this new development?" Aoba asked the elderly village leader.

"We tried to, but they were all shot down and killed by the bandits. Hinamora's personal guards all have abilities like the kind you shinobi have and were able to kill off all of our messenger hawks, the one we sent you was the only one that made it through, and we sent it before he appeared." Daisuke explained.

"Is there anything else you can think of Daisuke-san? Have they returned since Hinamora appeared?" Aoba asked the elderly village leader.

"Yes they have been back about once every four days. Hinamora is never with them; it's usually one of his personal guards along with some of regular bandits. They come into town and scare people and take a few things; they always say that the Tetsu Gōremu is 'protecting' us from the rest of the world. The last time they were here was yesterday, so they should not be back for a few more days." The man explained.

Aoba nodded his head. "I understand Daisuke-san. Don't worry; we will deal with this situation as quickly as possible. Even though my team is young, they are all exceptional shinobi and can handle this group of bandits. I'd better go check on them to make sure everything is okay." With that Aoba excused himself and went in search of his team.

Ryld, Ino, and Tayuya were currently doing a sweep around the perimeter of the village. Aoba caught up with his team as they were hopping though trees, they all landed on the ground and grouped around their sensei. "Alright team I have bad news, this mission is no longer C-rank, I am upgrading it to B-rank. We have a missing samurai wanted in Tetsu no Kuni leading this group of bandits. His name is Hinamora Gin, he is considered equivalent to an A-rank nuke-nin in the bingo book. Normally we would call for back up from a Chunin team led by another Jonin, but the bandits have killed all of the messenger hawks. So we are going to have to deal with this situation ourselves. I do however have complete confidence in your ability to handle the increased rank of the mission." Aoba explained to his Genin team.

Ino and Tayuya were shocked by the declaration of their sensei, and very happy with his praise of their abilities. Ryld was equally happy but not nearly as surprised by their sensei's confidence in them. Ryld knew, thanks to his and Naruto's tendency to sneak into the Hokage's office, that Aoba had specifically requested all the members of his team so that he could train them. He gave his sensei his patented wolfish grin. "We understand sensei, so what is the plan?" He asked with enthusiasm.

Aoba saw his student's grin and was instantly reminded of Anko. He returned his students grin. "The plan is for you guys to get in some training so that we will be ready for when they return. Hinamora usually sends a group of his thugs to check on the village every four day. The last time any were here was yesterday so we should have about three days to get in some training. Now we need to just find a good training area." Aoba said and led his team to a clearing about a mile from the village. "This area looks like it will be good for training. All right team now its time for you to learn how to climb trees." Aoba said with a smile.

All three Genin were somewhat confused by what their sensei said to them, until Aoba walked up to the nearest tree and put his foot on the trunk and proceeded to walk right up the tree. He didn't stop until he was standing on the bottom of one of the branches looking at his team while hanging upside down. "Alright, this is a chakra exercise where you apply a certain amount of chakra to the bottom of you feet in order to stick to the tree. This is difficult because the bottom of your feet is one of the hardest places to concentrate chakra at. This exercise has multiple benefits. For starters it allows you be able to fight in new ways. Secondly it helps build chakra control, and finally it also helps increase chakra reserves."

The Genin team all looked at each other before breaking out into large grins. Aoba smiled at his Genin and dropped down from the tree. "Now in order to do this correctly you have to release an exact amount of chakra to the bottom of your feet. Too much chakra and you will be pushed off of the tree, too little and you wont be able to stick to it. Use kunai to mark your progress up the tree. Now some sensei believe that you should use a running start to get up the tree, but I disagree with that approach because it gives you a false sense of accomplishment. You need to make slow deliberate progress in order to correctly build your chakra control and reserves."

Each of the Genin pulled out a kunai and approached a tree. Ryld put his right hand into a ram seal and concentrated his chakra to the bottom of his feet. He placed his left foot onto the tree and attempted to climb. He made it up about a half a dozen steps before his control wavered and he put too much chakra into his foot and he was blown off the tree. He landed hard and looked at the tree trunk, there was a foot shaped impression in the trunk of the tree where he had been pushed off.

Tayuya was having better luck, she made it about a quarter of the way up the tree before her control also wavered, she quickly marked the tree with her kunai before she slipped off of the tree and fell to the ground.

Ino was having the best progress of the three Genin, of course she always did have the best chakra control, she made it the entire way up the tree. She marked her progress and quickly dropped down to the ground again. "Great job Ino, I knew you would get this down the fastest. However you are not finished with your training." Aoba said to the blonde kunoichi.

Ino looked gave her sensei a confused look. "Why sensei? I did the exercise."

"Yes Ino you did, and fantastically. However you have not mastered the exercise yet. You will not master fully it until you are able to stay on the tree for at least six hours. This is the part of the exercise I told you about where it helps to build your chakra reserves. Now Ino I would like you to go up and down the tree for as long as you have enough chakra to do it. Continuously doing this will increase your chakra reserves." Aoba explained.

"Oh I understand sensei." With a look of fierce determination Ino climbed back on the tree and started climbing up to the top and back down again. She was able to keep this up for about twenty minutes before her chakra reserves started to fail her. She slid down the tree and was gulping for air.

_Several hours later_

The Genin team had made significant progress in the tree climbing exercise. Ino was now able to stand on the tree for an hour before her chakra started to run out. Tayuya was having better progress with the stamina portion of the exercise since she had slightly higher chakra reserves than Ino. She was able to stand on the tree for an hour and forty-five minutes before her chakra ran out.

Ryld was still having a hard time with the first part of the exercise. His teammates did not mock him for this since they knew chakra control was difficult for him as he had insanely high chakra reserves, more so than many Jonin. He was able to make it about three quarters of the way up the before his control would waver and he would try to compensate by pushing a more chakra into his foot but he would get blasted off the tree again. Rather than use a kunai to mark his progress he was using the imprints his feet had left in the trunk of the tree.

Aoba was watching all of his students practice very carefully. He would give pointers when he deemed it necessary. Overall he was pleased with his student's progress, even though he knew that Ryld was very frustrated that he was unable to get this down as easily as his female teammates. "Okay team, let's head back to the village, we can pick up again in the morning." He yelled at his Genin team.

Ino and Tayuya nodded to their sensei before dropping off their respective trees, however Ryld acted as though he didn't hear and continued his slow deliberate pace up his tree. He made it two steps past his previous mark when his control wavered and he was blasted off the tree by his chakra. He managed to flip in mid-air and land safely on the ground. With a snarl, that sounded much like a wolf, he started heading back towards his tree when Aoba stopped him.

"Ryld, didn't you hear me. I said we were done for the evening. We will go back to the village and stay the night, then be out here again first thing in the morning." Aoba said while looking at his male student.

Ryld grimaced and shook his head. "No thank you Aoba-sensei, I'm not tired. I know that if I can get in some more training I will be able to get the hang of this." The young Genin said to his sensei.

Aoba thought about it for a moment. "If you're sure Ryld. We will head back to the village. When you get tired just come back to the village."

With that Ino, Tayuya, and Aoba headed back to the village and the young Jinchuuriki was left alone to do his training.

_The next morning_

Aoba and the kunoichi members of his team were heading back to the clearing they hade been using to train in. Ino and Tayuya were slightly worried about their teammate since Aoba had told them Ryld never came back to the village that night, although Aoba said he would be fine. When they got back to the clearing they were amazed to see Ryld already awake and sitting on the underside of one of the branches, he seemed to be writing on something.

Ino was the first to get over her shock. "Hey Ryld-kun, you did it. That's awesome." She yelled at the blue-black haired teen.

Ryld, who hadn't noticed them approach looked up at the sound of Ino's voice. "Yeah I got the right amount of chakra down a few hours after you guys left. Then I started working on maintaining it." He said while giving them his wolfish grin. Then he suddenly got a confused look on his face. "Wait, aren't you guys supposed to be back in the morning?" Ryld asked his teammates.

All three ninja sweat dropped at Ryld's confusion. "You dumb ass, it is morning. What the hell time did you think it fucking was?" Tayuya asked her teammate in her usual abrasive fashion.

Ryld suddenly looked around and noticed that it was daylight. "Holy crap, I've been sitting here all night. It was just after ten pm last night that I sat down and started meditating. Then once I was done meditating I started working on one of my new seal designs and then you guys showed up."

Ino and Tayuya were gob smacked. Ryld had been sitting on the underside of the branch for over nine hours. They knew he had huge chakra reserves and insane stamina but he didn't even seem to be breathing hard.

Aoba was impressed with his student's progress, but was more interested in the seal he said he was working on. "Ryld why don't you come down here. I would like to see that seal you are working on, besides since you were able to sit on the underside of that branch all night you have more than mastered tree climbing."

Ryld gave his wolfish grin and dropped from the tree, he flipped mid-air and landed in front of his team. "Here you go Aoba-sensei. It is a modified explosive tag seal. See the idea behind it is instead of just creating an explosion, this seal will create a blast of burning gel that will stick to whatever is close by and continue burning for a long time." Ryld explained while handing the seal diagram to his sensei.

Aoba looked over the seal and was impressed by the level of detail in the seal. He was no seal master, certainly not to the level of the Toad Sanin Jiraya or even the lesser extent of Hatake Kakashi, but he could tell that if this seal worked the way Ryld described it could be a devastating weapon in combat. "Very impressive Ryld, how long do you think it will take you to complete this seal?" Aoba asked his student.

Ryld rubbed the back of his head before answering. "I don't think it will be ready for a while sensei. I was going to have mom, and maybe Hokage-sama look it over before I started testing it."

Aoba nodded his head at his student. "That is probably a good idea Ryld. Now then Ino, Tayuya, I want both of you to continue with tree climbing, while I don't expect either of you to get to the same level as Ryld within the next two days, both of you should be able to manage three hours on a tree. Understood?" The Jonin asked his two female students. He got a resounding "Yes sensei" from both girls and they went back to working on the tree climbing exercise.

He then turned back towards Ryld. "Now then Ryld why don't you and I go work on you Kenjutsu some more. I know you have been improving but we are facing samurai, the people who created Kenjutsu, and since you a Kenjutsu user some of them will feel the need to challenge you. So lets get to work." Aoba said, as Ryld nodded his head and unsheathed both of his katana.

Team Six had been working hard for the last two days while waiting for word of the next visit from the bandits, both Ino and Tayuya had mastered tree walking to their sensei's satisfaction the first day and started working on perfecting the newest jutsu they had been working on before leaving for their mission. Tayuya had just put the finishing touches on her new sound based jutsu, the Piasu-on doriru (_Piercing Sound Drill_). Ino was finishing her training on her latest clan jutsu, the Undō Bakuhatsu (_Kinetic Bolt_). Ryld had been working with Aoba on his Kenjutsu form and power with the Kazan style. Aoba was more and more impressed with the dual wielding Kenjutsu style, as it was powerful on both offense and defense.

Just as Daisuke had predicted, three days after the shinobi had appeared a group of six thugs led by one of the rogue samurai walked into the village as though they owned it, the thugs glared at the men they saw and leered at the women. The samurai in the group at least had enough self-control to keep himself to frowns at the villagers in general, however he did not stop the thugs under his command from taking things and groping some of the women. They kept this up for about an hour before they started to leave.

However what none of them knew was that as soon as they came in sight of the village Tayuya played a tune on her flute and placed all seven of the men under a Genjutsu that has them thinking they were inspecting the village when they were really just wandering around the woods towards where the shinobi had their ambush set up. The samurai leader must have realized that something was wrong because he suddenly put his hands into a Ram Seal and shouted "Kai" to release the Genjutsu.

Unfortunately for the samurai and the thugs it was far to late by the time he realized he was under a Genjutsu. Before he could do anything Ryld appeared in the middle of the bandit group with both his katana drawn and performed his perfected Ryu Tatsumaki, taking out four of the six bandits by slashing them to pieces. Tayuya threw a kunai that buried itself in the fifth man's throat and Ino killed the last bandit by hitting him with a well-placed Suiton: Teppodama. The large ball of water hit him directly in the chest, breaking his entire rib cage and crushing all of the organs underneath.

The samurai turned to flee only to be surrounded by a flock of Aoba's patented Crow clones that quickly started pecking the man until he could no longer move. The crows had been extremely careful to avoid his face, or anything that might kill the man, instead focusing on his hands legs and abdomen. The samurai fell hard and was in considerable pain when the crows finally flapped away.

Aoba calmly walked into the clearing and surveyed his team's handiwork. He nodded to each of his students, letting them know he was proud of how they handled their first kills. He then turned to the samurai lying on the ground unable to move. "Well now, it seems that one survived. This is good, now we can have a nice little conversation about your friend the Tetsu Gōremu." Aoba said to the man with a sinister smirk on his face.

The man paled significantly when his master was mentioned, but quickly regained what little of his composure he had left. "You will never defeat the great Tetsu Gōremu, ninja scum. All you can do is hide in the shadows and strike without honor, but you will fall in the face of true warriors. Were it not for your little tricks and illusions I would have killed all of you." The samurai blustered at the three shinobi, all of whom laughed at him.

Ryld recovered first. "Yeah right. You fell for one of Tayuya's most basic Genjutsu and you were in it for over an hour before you finally realized something was wrong. If Tayuya had pulled out a more powerful one you would have either never even realized anything was wrong or if you had you wouldn't have been able to get out of it. I've felt bigger chakra reserves in a second year academy student." The Jinchuuriki said condescendingly to the man lying in front of him.

Then Ryld, suddenly channeling his mother, looked at the man with what he thought of as his mothers most disturbing and frightening grin plastered on his face. "Now are you going to tell me everything that you know about your friend Hinamora Gin and the rest of these bandits, and you fellow samurai, or do you want to become intimately familiar with one of my swords?" Ryld asked in a sickly sweet and highly disturbing voice that he had no doubt picked up from his mother, all while holding the blade of Kamikaze a few centimeters from the samurai's crotch.

Aoba quickly reminded himself that even though Ryld was not Anko, the fact that she had raised him for ten years had obviously rubbed off on him and he was definitely her son. Praying to Kami that the samurai Ryld was getting ready to interrogate would keep his sanity long enough to give them useful information he lead them to the bandits base camp, he led his kunoichi students out of the clearing.

Both Ino and Tayuya looked a little surprised by how they had seen Ryld act as he was starting to interrogate the prisoner. Although Tayuya quickly remembered that Ryld's mom was one of the top interrogators in the T&I division in Konoha. When she mentioned it to Ino, the blonde quickly relaxed having heard her father say that while Anko was a bit of a nut she had never maimed a prisoner while having them in interrogation, outside where she was just another shinobi was a completely different set of rules. With that thought in mind, Ino had no doubt that he would get the info from the samurai and not have to resort to physically torturing the man.

_Half an hour later_

Ryld came out of the clearing where he had been interrogating the samurai with a look of grim satisfaction on his face. Aoba walked up to him. "What did you find out?" He asked his student.

"Well sensei, we have the location of their base, as well as a good estimate of their manpower. It looks like they have about fifty thugs, forty samurai about the level of our friend back there, five samurai Lieutenants that are higher ranking, I would guess they are maybe mid to high Genin rank. Then we have the big boys, we already know about Hinamora, but he has two Commanders that are supposed to by nearly as strong as he is. He didn't know their names, only the titles they go by in the gang, one wears midnight black armor and a traditional samurai mask and is simply called Akuma (_Devil_), and the other is dressed like a battle monk and is called Karitori-ki (_Reaper_). He didn't know a lot about those two except that they hate Hinamora. It seems the only reason they follow him is because they have nowhere else to go, he said they are missing samurai for Tetsu no Kuni just like Hinamora, and because Hinamora is strong enough to keep them in line." Ryld explained to Aoba.

Aoba quickly questioned Ryld on a few more details about the location and layout of the enemy base. He quickly devised an attack strategy for taking out the bandit camp. He then turned to his students. "Alright listen up. This is going to be a precision strike on the camp. We'll use headsets to keep in contact until I give the signal to attack. When I do, you all know what to do, correct?" He asked his Genin team.

All three teenagers nodded to their sensei, but Ryld decided to speak up. "Sensei, Ino, Tayuya, there's something I need to show all of you before we start this attack. Mom and me have been keeping this a secret because of how the civilian council acts. They hate my mom and by extension me." His teacher and teammates all gave him very confused looks so he decided to just get up and show them.

Ryld drew both of his katana and started channeling his chakra natures into both blades. Kamikaze was immediately covered in a bluish-white wind aura, while Oni-Kaji was enveloped in reddish-black flames. At his teams shocked looks Ryld decided to explain. "My birth mother had these swords made for me right after I was born. They are made to have my specific elemental chakra channeled through them, Kamikaze for wind chakra, and Oni-Kaji for fire chakra. Now I know that there are other chakra conductive blades out there, but these two are unique because they don't just allow me to channel my chakra through them, watch."

With that Ryld quickly launched a Kaze Surasshu (_Wind Slash_) at a tree, the Kaze Surasshu cut not only that tree apart, but several trees behind it as well. Ryld stopped channeling his chakra through the blades and turned back to his teammates. "The reason I've basically kept this to myself is because if the civilian council knew about what these blades could do they would probably try to have them taken from me so that they could give them to someone else they felt "deserved" them more than the son of Konoha's snake whore, like that douche bag Uchiha they all fawn over. I hope you guys aren't mad at me for keeping this from you." Ryld explained to all of them.

Ino, Tayuya and Aoba all exchanged looks before turning back to the young Jinchuuriki. "Of course we aren't mad at you Ryld-kun. You had good reasons for hiding what your swords could do. You're absolutely right about how the civilian council would react. They would try to force Hokage-sama to make you give up the swords." Ino explained to Ryld while giving him a dazzling smile. Tayuya was also giving Ryld a smile and nodding to what the blonde was saying.

Aoba quickly cleared his throat to bring attention back to himself. "Alright team, now that this has all been brought to light we can focus on our mission. Now Hinamora and his gang expect these guys to be back fairly soon so we need to hurry so that we can catch them off guard. So lets head out." Aoba said to his Genin team as they all disappeared in bursts of speed.

_Several miles away at the bandit camp_

The sentries at the bandit camp were fairly lax in their duties ever since they had first attacked the town and there had been no retaliation. Several were asleep at their posts and those that weren't looked bored and were staring off into space.

Aoba and his team had taken out their communication headsets and put them on as they were heading toward the bandit camp. Once they got about a mile away they split up and quietly surrounded the camp, taking out all of the sentries surrounding the camp. As Aoba quickly took stock of the inside of the camp he noticed that it looked more like two camps separated by an invisible line. The bandits were easy to tell apart from the rogue samurai, the bandits had messy tents and blankets set up on the ground with no real organized way about it. By contrast the samurai section of the camp looked extremely clean and well maintained. Most of the bandits he could see were sleeping or playing dice, where as most of the samurai he could see were maintaining their weapons and equipment.

"This is Crow, check position." Aoba said into the microphone of his headset.

"Wolf here, in position." Ryld responded almost immediately.

"Red here, in position." Came Tayuya's response.

"Mind here, in position." Ino confirmed.

"Alright team. Bring the rain." Aoba said.

_Meanwhile inside the bandit camp_

Suddenly and without warning all hell started to break loose inside the bandit camp. All of a sudden there was a hail kunai flying all around the camp followed quickly by explosions, as the kunai all had explosive tags around them. As the bandits and samurai attempted to regroup from the shock of the explosions and the casualties of the attack there were suddenly several shinobi entering the camp.

Aoba came into the east side of the bandit camp and quickly went through a set of hand seals. "Doton: Yomi Numa (_Earth Release: Swamp of the Underworld_)!" He shouted as he slammed his hands on the ground. The Doton jutsu quickly turned the entire bandit section of the camp into a large swamp, causing many bandits to quickly sink and drown in the mud.

Before he entered the west side of the samurai section of the camp Ryld decided to make some more chaos and quickly went through some hand seals. "Fuuton: Daitoppa (_Wind Release: Great Breakthrough_)!" He shouted as he brought his hand to his mouth and blew a huge gust of wind, which flung weapons, pieces of armor, and even a few people around before it died down. Ryld quickly followed his jutsu by running into the camp with his blades drawn slashing through any of the rogue samurai he came across.

Tayuya quickly summoned one of her Doki to fight as she entered the north side of the samurai camp. The Doki she summoned is large, shirtless, and has a lot of scars on its head. It is wearing a blindfold and has bracers, ending in long claws that extend past its hands, tied to each arm with combat wraps. Before entering the camp, she used one of her more useful Genjutsu to make herself and her Doki invisible to most of the camp, as once she saw Ryld's Fuuton Jutsu she started playing on her flute and her Doki followed her into the samurai camp where they began wreaking havoc.

Ino quickly entered the south side of the bandit camp and skirted around her sensei's Doton: Yomi Numa. She saw several bandits trying to escape his swamp and went through some hand seals. "Suiton: Teppodama (_Water Release: Gunshot_)!" She shouted and fired a half dozen head sized water bullets at the bandits, knocking a few of them back into the swamp with glancing blows, the other two bandits took full hits from her jutsu. One was dead before he hit the ground, having been struck in the back of the head and snapping his neck. The other was hit in the shoulder by the liquid projectile and had most of the bones in his arm pulverized. The man screamed in agony but was quickly silenced by Ino who threw a shuriken at him and hit him in the temple with the metal star, killing him instantly.

The five samurai Lieutenants quickly brought the remaining samurai into a state of controlled chaos. They completely ignored the bandits and left them to their fate, quickly turning towards the sword wielding shinobi in the middle of their camp. Ryld saw the group of about a dozen samurai heading towards him; he guessed the five leading them were the Lieutenants his prisoner had told him about. He quickly sheathed his katana and went though some hand seals and poured on a lot more chakra than was necessary for the jutsu. "Katon: Hitama no Jutsu (_Fire Release:__Flame Shot_)!" With the extra chakra he pushed into the jutsu he shot out six large fireballs at his enemies, each one was about the size of a large dog, hitting four of the low ranking samurai directly and instantly immolating them. The remaining eight samurai dodged his jutsu and three of them surrounded him with their katana drawn. The Lieutenants stood behind their subordinates also with their katana drawn.

"Well shinobi scum, let's see what you can do when you can't rely on your trickery and deception to win." Taunted one of the samurai surrounding Ryld. The young Jinchuuriki just gave them a crazy looking wolfish grin and drew his katana, Oni-Kaji in his left hand in a reverse grip and Kamikaze in his right in a normal grip. The samurai quickly charged the young Genin hoping to overwhelm him with their numbers.

Ryld quickly abused them of that idea. "Ryu Tatsumaki!" He shouted while quickly spinning and cut all three of his opponents the shreds with his swords. Ryld flipped Oni-Kaji into a normal grip and flicked the blood off both blades. "Alright." He said to the five samurai Lieutenants. "Whose next."

Before any of them could respond Tayuya and he Doki arrived. "Hey you stupid fuckers, don't just pay attention to him, he's not the only fucking problem you assholes have. This kunoichi is your worst fucking nightmare." Tayuya shouted before brining her flute back up to her lips and playing a fast paced tune. Her Doki responded immediately and started attacking the nearest samurai with his claws.

Two of the samurai turned to face the new threat while the other three kept their focus on Ryld. The two that face Tayuya and her Doki quickly charged the monster, hoping to cut it down quickly. Tayuya played furiously on her flute and the Doki responded. The first samurai slashed at the Doki's head while his partner slashed low at stomach. The Doki quickly brought both its arms in line with the strikes and blocked them both, seemingly without much effort. It them pushed both swordsmen back with its incredible strength, then it went on the offensive. It rushed the first samurai with a speed that was extremely surprising considering its size and tried to stab him with its clawed bracer. The samurai blocked the attack with his sword, while the other one quickly charged his sword with chakra and sent a chakra slash at the Doki.

Tayuya quickly changed the tune on her flute and her Doki immediately responded by quickly dodging the chakra slash, the samurai were again amazed at how quick and agile the large creature was. Tayuya decided to go on the offensive after this, she changed the tune of her song again and her large Doki quickly charged the samurai that had sent the chakra slash at it and proceeded to slash at him with it's claws. The samurai charged his blade with chakra again and blocked the Doki's attacks, hoping his chakra-coated blade would destroy the Doki's weapon.

However he failed to notice that in changing the tune she was playing on her flute, Tayuya had managed to place him in a Genjutsu. As he was trying to block what he thought was Tayuya's Doki with his blade, he was actually blocking air. The Doki meanwhile was still busy attacking the first Lieutenant. Without the support of his teammate the first Lieutenant was quickly being over powered by the strength of the large summon. He attempted to block a thrust from the Doki's right hand claw, only to miss seeing the left hand claw swipe coming in at chest level. The claw swipe cut right through the light body armor he was wearing and tore open his chest. As he was trying to stop from bleeding to death the samurai Lieutenant was taken out by the thrust of the right hand claw that went right through his head.

As Tayuya finished off the first Lieutenant Ino and Aoba arrived on scene. The young Yamanaka saw the samurai Tayuya had placed in a Genjutsu and decided to take him out of his misery. She chose to use the new clan technique she had been working on, so she quickly went through some hand seals and thrust her right hand towards the man. "Undō Bakuhatsu (_Kinetic Bolt_)!" She shouted and the telekinetic force flung the man into a tree hard enough to dent said tree. The man slumped to the ground dead from the impact.

Ryld was fighting the three remaining lieutenants and things were not really looking great. Ryld was mostly staying on the defensive facing three enemies, and he knew that his Ryu Tatsumaki would not catch them off guard again. He thought about channeling his elemental chakra into his swords and attempting the Kenjutsu move but decided not to since they would anticipate him trying to use the move.

He was about to try and create some room when he heard his sensei yell. "Ninpo: Karasu mure (_Ninja Art: Crow Swarm_)!" Suddenly the entire area was covered in a massive flock of crows.

Ryld took advantage of the visual distraction and charged his blades with elemental chakra. He quickly aimed at two of the samurai. "Kaen Surasshu (_Flame Slash_)! Kaze Surasshu (_Wind Slash_)!" He yelled as he flung the elemental chakra slashes at the samurai. The Kaze Surasshu he sent at the samurai to his far right was vertical and literally cut the man in half, while the Kaen Surasshu he sent to his far left was horizontal and quickly turned the samurai into a pile of molten metal and blackened bones. Before the last samurai could either attempt to fight or flee Aoba appeared behind him and drove a kunai into his back quickly killing him.

As the shinobi quickly looked around trying to see if there were more enemies for them to fight they suddenly felt massive waves of KI directed at them.

_**END CHAPTER FOUR**_


	5. Battle With the Samurai

_**CHAPTER FIVE: BATTLE WITH THE SAMURAI AND A JINCHUURIKI REVEALED**_

Ino and Tayuya were having trouble breathing and staying on their feet due to the pressure from the KI, while Ryld was having a slightly better time dealing with it. Aoba quickly turned towards the KI and flared his own chakra to help relieve the strain on his students. All three Genin started to recover thanks to their sensei and turned towards where he was looking.

Standing near the center of the encampment were the three men producing the KI. The man in the center was Hinamora Gin. He looked just like his bingo book picture. He had his black hair up in a samurai's topknot, and wore a beard. He wore a traditional grey Tetsu no Kuni Cuirass but no other apparent armor, a set of black hakama style pants and a steel grey sleeveless haori with the kanji for Tetsu Gōremu on the back. The haori was shredded near the bottom. He carried a katana on his back, the wrapped hilt sticking up over his right shoulder.

To Hinamora's left was the mountain of a man known in the camp as Akuma. His face could not be seen since it was hidden under his helmet. He wore a full set of black Tetsu no Kuni samurai armor that looked extremely heavy. His helmet was the kind worn by officers, as it had a pair of large horns on the top, and his face was obscured by a demonic looking facemask. He carried a pair of katana on his left hip; also in black sheaths and black handle wrappings.

Standing to Hinamora's left was the man known as Karitori-ki. He was completely bald and had a condescending grin on his face as he looked at the shinobi. He wore a blood red monks robe that left his right arm bare. He also wore a set of blood red hakama pants. Instead of a sword he had a naginata with a redwood handle and a long curved and serrated blade, that had several spikes coming off the back curve of it, propped against his shoulder.

The three missing samurai were looking over the four shinobi before Hinamora started clapping slowly. "Well done shinobi-san. You took out the entire camp of my followers, and my five Lieutenants while sustaining no injuries yourselves. I must say I am impressed. Especially considering how young three of you are, and the fact that two of you are women." Hinamora said in a condescending voice.

Ino and Tayuya both bristled at the man's comments, but Aoba quickly put his hand up and both of them stopped. "He wants to make us angry, don't let him succeed." Aoba warned. "So you are Hinamora Gin, the Infamous Tetsu Gōremu? I must say I'm not impressed. How far must you have fallen to lead this group of dogs and attack a small village with only a small militia for protection." Aoba said to the missing samurai, his voice full of scorn.

If Hinamora was offended by Aoba's words he did not show it. "So you are the Jonin in charge of this group of children? What couldn't Konoha send out real ninja? They had to send out the kiddy patrol and their babysitter?" Asked Karitori-ki, still with that condescending grin on his face.

"Oh no, my students definitely do not need a babysitter. You are looking at the finest Genin team to be produced in Konoha in years, as you three will soon find out." Aoba said to the three men, all while wearing a cocky smirk.

The three Genin also smiled at their sensei's words and all got into battle stances. Tayuya put her flute up to her lips and prepared to play a tune to control her Doki. Ino pulled a kunai from her pouch and held it in a reverse grip. Ryld got into the opening stance of the Kazan style and released all of the weight seals on his clothes, losing a total of two hundred and fifty pounds between all of his seals.

Hinamora and Akuma both drew their respective katana and started separating from each other while walking slowly towards the shinobi.

Aoba discretely pointed at Ino and Tayuya and then Karitori-ki, then pointed from Ryld to Akuma. Getting slow nods from all three of his students, the then quickly made a closed fist, the symbol for attack, and disappeared via Shunshin and attacked Hinamora.

Ryld also quickly disappeared in a burst of speed, even more than normal since he had released his weights, and quickly performed a downward slash at the massive figure of Akuma with Kamikaze. Akuma brought one of his own katana up to block the blow from the young Jinchuuriki, and countered with a horizontal slash with his remaining katana that Ryld barely blocked with Oni-Kaji. The two dual sword wielders were locked in a struggle of strength for almost a full minute before Akuma's greater size and strength started push Ryld back. The young Genin dug in his heels and tried to stand firm against this mountain of a man, but was finally forced to retreat or be knocked over.

The two quickly started fighting again, slashing at each other. Ryld had the advantage in speed since he had released his weights, but Akuma had far more strength ad was able to take the few minor hits Ryld managed to get past his defense due to the incredible thickness of his armor. Ryld started channeling his elemental chakra into his swords, causing Kamikaze to be incased in its bluish-white wind aura and Oni-Kaji to be enveloped in reddish-black flames, and did a quick combo involving a feinting slash with kamikaze at Akuma's midsection followed by a super fast thrust with Oni-kaji that should have impaled the huge man. However he was prepared for the feint and didn't fall for it, instead slapping the blade of Oni-Kaji with both of his blades, forcing it out wide and leaving Ryld wide open to attack.

Akuma did a double slash at Ryld, who just barely gout out of the way enough to avoid being cut in half by the powerful slash. However he did not escape completely unscathed as there was a large slash across his chest, but thanks to his Bijuu the wound was already closing quickly. The two dual swordsmen were looking at each other, each hoping to spot a weakness in the other's defense.

_With Ino and Tayuya_

Ino and Tayuya quickly separated from each other and stared at their opponent, Karitori-ki. The battle monk was lazily walking towards the two kunoichi with his naginata resting on his shoulder. "So not only do I have to fight children, but females at that. What a boring day. That bastard Akuma gets the kid with the two swords, he at least looked like he might be interesting to fight. Of course Gin takes the Jonin of the group, selfish prick." The bald monk grumbles to himself.

Both kunoichi hear what he says and bristle at the insult. They look at each other and both nod, determined to make the man pay for underestimating them. Tayuya immediately started playing a tune on her flute, causing her Doki to shoot forward and start attacking the battle monk. It did a downward at him with his right claw and followed it up with a straight thrust with its left claw.

Shinigami quickly spun his naginata and brought it in line at an angle in front of his chest, blocking both the Doki's attacks effortlessly. Ino Quickly went through hand seals. "Undō Bakuhatsu!" She shouted, shooting a powerful telekinetic blast at the battle monk. Tayuya's Doki quickly moved out of the way of the jutsu to allow Shinigami to take the invisible blast of energy. The battle monk quickly channeled his own chakra into his naginata and slashed at the Yamanaka's attack, somehow cutting the attack in two and forcing it to miss on either side of him.

"Not bad girly, but you're going to have to do much better if u want to defeat my Chikara no kattā (_Force Cutter_). This weapon allows me to cut through any sort of chakra based attack directed at me, making it the perfect weapon for fighting pathetic shinobi like you." Karitori-ki said with a manic grin plastered on his face. He quickly went on the offensive and ran at Ino, attempting to impale her with his pole arm. Tayuya's Doki quickly intercepted the battle monk by grabbing the handle of the Chikara no kattā and pushing down on the weapon, forcing it into the ground in front of the young Yamanaka.

Ino immediately jumped back and threw a Kunai with an explosive tag attached at the battle monk's feet. Karitori-ki didn't try to get away from the exploding tag; he put his right hand into a Ram seal and flared his chakra around himself just as the tag exploded. Once the smoke cleared Ino and Tayuya could see that the man was unharmed and there was a barrier around him.

"Do you like? It's my Chikara Kekkai (_Force Barrier_). It's one of the techniques the monks of my order learn. It creates a barrier around the user, completely protecting him from any attack directed at him. You little girls are turning out to be no fun at all. I was hoping you would at least put up a fight before I killed you." Karitori-ki said with an insane smile on his face.

_With Aoba_

Aoba was worried about his students but believed that they could handle their respective opponents. He turned his full attention on his own enemy. Hinamora was standing with his katana held in a loose grip. Aoba drew a kunai from his leg holster and held it in a reverse grip.

Hinamora looked at the fights going on between his subordinates and the young shinobi with an amused smile on his face. "I do hope your students provide my men with some entertainment. They were getting so bored out here in the middle of nowhere with no good opponents to fight. Especially Shinigami, he is always looking for a good fight. What do you think shinobi-san? Will your whelps put up a good fight before it's over?" Hinamora asked Aoba.

The Jonin simply smiled at the missing samurai. "Not only do I believe that my students will put up a fight, I believe that they will win. I have trained these Genin personally and they are more than ready for this battle." He said to Hinamora with confidence.

"Oh really, well I guess I will have to see these fighting skills you have taught your students." Hinamora said as he charged Aoba. The samurai slashed at Aoba with his katana but the Jonin did a quick Kariwimi and Hinamora cut through a log instead.

Aoba went through a quick set of hand seals. "Katon: Haisekisho (_Fire Style: Combustion Ash Cloud_)!" He shouted and spewed a large cloud of heated ash from his mouth that quickly enveloped Hinamora. Once Hinamora was engulfed Aoba clicked his teeth together and the entire ash cloud exploded violently. Aoba started looking around for the missing Samurai, Knowing that one jutsu was not enough to finish him off, when suddenly Hinamora came charging out from where the ash cloud had exploded with his sword raised and covered in chakra. The samurai slashed his charka-coated sword at the Konoha Jonin, who quickly dodged the attack.

Aoba got a good look at the samurai. His Haori was gone, having been completely burnt off of him, his Cuirass was also scorched in places and his hakama pants were shredded and burned. However Hinamora himself looked no worse for wear, in fact there seemed to be a slight shine to his skin.

Hinamora noticed Aoba looking at him and gave him a grin. "What do you think of my Kekkei Genkai shinobi-san? My title of Tetsu Gōremu is not just an honorific. I have a very rare and special Kekkei Genkai called Suchīrubodi (_Steel Body_). It literally allows me to turn my skin into steel by channeling my chakra through it. So far I have yet to find anything that can harm me while in this state. So shinobi-san, as you can see you have absolutely no chance of defeating me. Even if your students do manage to defeat my subordinates then I will simply be forced to kill them myself." Hinamora explained with his grin still on his face.

'_This is bad_.' Aoba thought to himself. '_I need to figure out a way to get past his Suchīrubodi or else I'm finished. Wait, he said that he channeled his chakra through his skin to turn it into steel. I wonder if it has all of the characteristics of steel or only the strength._' Aoba thought as a plan started to form on how to defeat his opponent.

_Back with Ryld_

Ryld was definitely having a difficult time with Akuma. Despite being a mountain of a man, he was surprisingly fast. Every time Ryld tried to put some distance between them so that he could try a jutsu, the black clad monster was in his face as quick as Ryld had gotten away. He also knew that his opponent was better at Kenjutsu than him. Ryld had several rips in his clothes to attest to his skill. The only reason that Ryld was not bleeding profusely from his injuries was because Rokubi was working overtime on his healing factor. Also the fact that Akuma had yet to say a single word or even make a sound was extremely unnerving

'_**Cub you really need to do something about that guy. He is really starting to piss me off, and the way he keeps hitting you is making it difficult to heal your wounds quickly.**_' Rokubi said in his hosts mind.

'_I know Rokubi-sensei, but what am I supposed to do? This guy is WAY stronger than me, his Kenjutsu Is at a whole different level than mine, and he is as fast as I am. Any suggestions would be great right now sensei._' Ryld thought back to his Bijuu tenant.

'_**Do you remember what your mother said cub? Use some of my chakra to help. I'd say this situation more than warrants it.**_' Rokubi suggested to his host.

Ryld thought about using his tenant's chakra, but was worried that if his teammates found out that he was a Jinchuuriki they might treat him like Naruto was treated by most of the village. Although looking at his opponent and the obvious difference in ability Ryld decided he had no choice.

Slowly he tapped into the second chakra reserve inside of himself, and was flooded with some of Rokubi's demonic chakra. Ryld kept the amount at less than a full tail's worth so that his chakra cloak would not appear around him. It still caused a slight aura of dark blue, almost black, chakra to appear around the young Jinchuuriki. Because he tapped into his tenant's power Ryld's chakra spiked immensely and took on a sinister feeling, enough so that all of the fighters remaining felt the jump and change and looked in Ryld's direction.

Ryld also had a physical reaction to his Bijuu's chakra. His hair became wilder looking, his fingernails grew into claws, and his canines became longer and more fang-like. His biggest change was his eyes, the pupils became slits and his sclera turned the same dark blue as the aura that was surrounding him and started to glow.

Akuma seemed taken aback by the change to the boy he was fighting, but decided to come at him anyway. The huge samurai charged the young ninja with a powerful overhead slash. Ryld moved so fast that Akuma couldn't even follow the movement, however he felt it when Ryld's sword blocked his slash and flung his blade out wide. He quickly tried to jump back while bringing his other sword in line to block where he thought Ryld's follow up slash would be, but he was surprised when suddenly he felt a slash at his back that cut right through his thick armor into the flesh underneath.

Akuma quickly reversed his momentum and flung himself forward to avoid any further damage. He turned around and saw Ryld standing behind him, Kamikaze dripping blood and both his blades surrounded by the same dark blue aura that surrounded the boy. The wound on his back didn't feel deep, but it burned like fire. Before he could move Ryld disappeared in a burst of speed again, however this time Akuma could sense the young shinobi as was able to block his attack.

The two dual sword wielders continued attacking each other for several more minutes when their dance was interrupted by a piercing scream. "NOOO, INO!" Ryld quickly turned towards his two teammates and what he saw made him feel like his heart was being squeezed by a vice. Tayuya was laying a few feet away from Karitori-ki, trying to get up, while Ino was standing in front of the man. The problem was that Karitori-ki's naginata was buried inside of Ino's stomach with the tip of the serrated blade sticking out of her back. Ryld saw his blonde teammate standing there protecting her friend when suddenly Karitori-ki jerked his naginata out of her with a manic grin on his face. Seeing his teammate fall, and the look on her opponents face he suddenly lost all control. The last thing he remembered before a haze of red overtook him was unbelievable rage.

_With Ino and Tayuya, a few minutes earlier_

Ino knew that the two of them were in serious trouble. Karitori-ki was too good. His abilities made both of theirs completely useless, and what made it worse was that the man looked like he wasn't even trying. The battle monk actually looked bored fighting them.

They had tried everything in their arsenal and none of it had any effect on the man. Tayuya had tried summoning a second Doki to help her, but Karitori-ki quickly dispatched both of them and Tayuya was forced to un-summon them so they didn't die. Ino had tried several more jutsu, but between his Chikara no kattā and his Chikara Kekkai, they were all useless. Tayuya had tried placing the man under a Genjutsu, but he almost immediately detected and broke them, even her most powerful one.

Both kunoichi knew that the battle monk was just toying with them now as he slowly stalked them. All three fighters felt the huge surge in chakra coming from where Ryld was fighting Akuma, and they all stopped to look over at the pair. Ryld was covered in a dark blue aura and suddenly seemed a lot faster. Karitori-ki looked at the young shinobi and smiled a crazy smile. "Well I think I am going to cut our little fight short girlies. Your friend over there looks like a much more fun opponents now." He said before striding forward with a cocky smirk on his face.

Tayuya tried attacking with Taijutsu and was completely overwhelmed. She attempted a kick at his midsection, but Karitori-ki quickly brought his naginata's staff section in the way of her kick and pushed her back, then he spun, twirling his naginata, and hit her in the head with the back end of the weapon knocking her to the ground about ten feet away and dazing her. He then quickly charged at her, intent on impaling her with his vicious weapon.

Ino didn't even remember moving, she just saw her friend laying on the ground and the crazy battle monk charging her, and suddenly she was in front of him. Then she felt the most intense pain ever in her young life. She looked down to see the blade of Karitori-ki's naginata sticking out of her stomach, and she thought she could feel it poking out of her back as well. She heard Tayuya behind her. "NOOO, INO!" She looked up into the eyes of her attacker and saw the manic gleam in his eyes and he ripped the weapon out of her stomach and she fell. She tried to move her hands to cover the wound but suddenly didn't have the strength. The last thing she heard before darkness claimed her was a loud, inhuman howl that sounded filled with pain and rage.

_With Aoba at the same time_

Aoba was not looking good, his Jonin uniform had several cuts in it, and he was bleeding from a few of them, also his glasses had come off during the fight and there was a cut over his right eyebrow that was bleeding into his eye. Suddenly he felt the spike in Ryld's chakra and the sinister feeling that came with it. Both he and Hinamora looked over at the man fighting the huge Akuma and saw him covered in a dark aura. Hinamora simply shrugged and went back to slashing at the Jonin. Aoba quickly ducked the attack from the samurai and did a leg sweep that caught Hinamora by surprise and knocked him down. Aoba didn't get away scot free from that move, his leg felt like he had just kicked an iron girder, but he pushed the pain away and jumped back to get a bit of room between the two of them.

He decided to put his plan into motion, as none of his other attacks had any effect whatsoever on the Tetsu Gōremu, although they did show that his skin really did turn into steel, as this added a great deal of weight to the man. Quickly running through a long set of hand seals, just as Hinamora picked himself up Aoba was able to finish. "Raiton: Raikou Oonami (_Lightning Release: Lightning Surge_)!" Aoba shouted as he slammed his hands on the ground.

Lightning quickly raced along the ground and hit Hinamora. Since his skin was literally made of steel the lightning was conducted through him even faster and stronger than a normal person, immediately shocking him and paralyzing his muscles completely.

Before Aoba could do anything else he heard Tayuya scream. "NOOOO, INO!" He quickly turned towards his female students and his heart felt his guts twist. He saw the same thing that Ryld saw, and suddenly he felt an even bigger chakra spike coming from where his male student was fighting. Turning towards Ryld's fight he saw a vortex of dark blue, almost black chakra surrounding him. The chakra was so thick it was visible around him, as the vortex stopped he saw what looked like a cloak of chakra around Ryld.

The cloak was made of the same dark blue chakra and took the outline of a wolf on two legs. He had two pointed ears on his head and a tail made of chakra behind him. Akuma was backing away from the shinobi slowly, but he missed a step and stumbled slightly. The noise got Ryld's attention and he quickly disappeared in a burst of speed so fast that not even Aoba could follow him. The next thing he saw was Akuma laying on the ground a good fifty feet away from where he had been before with chunks ripped from his armor and his helmet laying away from him, now a crumpled mass of useless metal. Akuma wasn't moving and Aoba couldn't tell if he was alive or dead.

Then he heard a loud howl that sounded so filled with pain and rage that it actually hurt to hear. He didn't see what happened next due to the large explosion of dust that came. Aoba heard a movement behind him and was forced to look away from his students as he saw Hinamora starting to get over the paralysis. Deciding to finish his opponent for good so he could help his students, Aoba quickly went through another long series of hand seals, pushing in as much chakra as he could. "Raiton: Jibashi (_Lightning Release: Electromagnetic Murder_)!" He shouted and created a huge wave of electricity that shot straight at Hinamora. Since he was still partially paralyzed Hinamora couldn't dodge in time and was hit by the powerful Raiton Jutsu. It hit him square in the chest and proceeded to electrocute him to death. He fell over and was dead before he hit the ground. Aoba turned back towards the giant dust cloud where his students were battling hoping to see them and make sure they were all right.

_With Tayuya_

Tayuya saw her friend leap in front of the thrust meant for her and then saw the sadistic bastard yank his naginata back out in the most painful way possible. She didn't even hear herself scream, then suddenly she felt the enormous spike in Ryld's chakra and the massive KI leveled at Karitori-ki. The man just looked over at Ryld with that same sadistic smile on his face and started walking towards him. Suddenly she heard a crash come from about fifty feet to her right, but she couldn't see what it was. Then Ryld was in front of Karitori-ki punching him in the face, he had dropped his swords when he saw what happened to Ino. She saw the dark blue chakra cloak around him, as well as the tail of chakra behind him. Karitori-ki went flying away from Ryld and landed about twenty feet away.

He slowly got back up and looked over at the young Jinchuuriki. Slowly his manic grin returned to his face. "Not too bad kid, you're definitely worth fighting. More so than these two worthless bitches." He said while spitting out some blood.

Ryld heard his comment and his rage went even higher. He charged at Karitori-ki, who quickly brought his naginata in line with the punch and channeled his chakra into it. Ryld's punch hit the naginata and it bowed under his assault but did not break. Karitori-ki smirked and spun the naginata, attempting to slash Ryld with the blade. He was shocked when Ryld caught the blade with his bare hand, he tried to pull the blade back, but Ryld's grip on it was too strong.

The young Jinchuuriki pulled the Naginata right out of Karitori-ki's hands and grabbed it in both of his hands. With a look of rage on his face he snapped the wooden haft of the weapon and threw the pieces away. Karitori-ki was shocked, his Chikara no kattā had been made by the finest weapon smiths in Tetsu no Kuni from rare chakra laced trees and chakra conductive metal. This boy had snapped it like a twig, what was he?

The battle monk started slowly backing away from this demon creature when he suddenly thrust his arm forward and the arm of the chakra cloak surrounding him shot forward. Karitori-ki quickly put his hand up in a Ram Seal and performed his Chikara Kekkai. The barrier jutsu came up around him just in time as the chakra arm slammed into it. The arm continued pushing against the barrier in an attempt to break through. Karitori-ki started to sweat as the strain of holding the barrier against such a powerful force was wearing on him. The barrier started to warp under the incredible pressure being applied; the battle monk was having a hard time holding it at bay. his Chikara Kekkai was meant more to stop quick powerful attacks, not a sustained attack like this one.

Finally his chakra failed and the barrier collapsed, the chakra arm hit him directly in the chest and went straight through him. Ryld quickly dropped the man and started looking for another enemy to fight.

'_**CUB!**_' Ryld suddenly heard in his mind. He knew it was Rokubi-sensei trying to get through to him. '_**Cub listen to me, you need to calm down. The man who killed your friend is dead.**_' Rokubi started to explain, but he was cut off.

'_I don't care. He killed Ino and I am going to keep killing until I am satisfied._' Ryld ranted in his head, while in the real world he was standing with the most incredible look of pain and rage on his face.

'_**Cub if you would just listen to me, there may still be a way to save the girl.**_' Rokubi said to his host.

That certainly got Ryld's attention. '_What do you mean Rokubi sensei? Are you saying that we can save Ino?_' The blue-black haired teen asked sounding slightly hopeful.

'_**She is dead, but since she just died, we might be able to bring her back from the edge. Now here is what you have to do is go over to her and pour some of my chakra mixed with your own into her wound. There will be some consequences for you doing this though Cub, so don't undertake this lightly.**_' The Bijuu warned.

'_I don't care what consequences there are, as long as we can save Ino I won't care if I die because of this._' Ryld said to his tenant, and he slowly walked over to where Ino was lying. He put his hands on the wound in her stomach and started pushing his chakra, mixed with Rokubi's, into the wound.

'_**More chakra Cub, more of mine and more of yours, this is going to take as much as you can manage to give.**_' Rokubi instructed, and Ryld pushed as much chakra as he could into the wound. He continued doing this for well over five minutes before suddenly the wound closed up and Ino started moving. Once the wound closed fully, Rokubi pulled his chakra back and Ryld's chakra cloak vanished. Suddenly feeling completely exhausted Ryld slumped over on his side next to Ino and passed out.

_Some time later_

Ryld awoke slowly, feeling a weight on his chest. When he finally opened his eyes his vision was obscured by pale yellow. Trying to lift his arm to his face so he could get whatever it was off, he realized he couldn't move it because of whatever was laying on top of him. He started to struggle a bit against the weight on his chest when suddenly he felt the weight jerk and move off of him. Once the pale yellow was away from his eyes, he realized that the weight was Ino. She had been lying on his chest with her hair in his face.

"Ryld-kun, you're okay." Ino beamed at him.

All Ryld could do was stare. "I'm okay? What about you Ino-chan, I remember seeing you get stabbed that that psycho Karitori-ki, then there's this blank spot, and I remember passing out next to you. How are you not dead?" Ryld asked his blonde teammate.

'_**I can answer that for you Cub.**_' Ryld heard in his head. '_**You see what happened was your she over there did die, you went a little nuts and started to draw on my chakra. I limited you to only one tail of my chakra since I could tell you were extremely distraught and pissed off. You killed the bastard responsible, very nicely done by the way, and then wanted to go on a rampage. I convinced you not to do that by telling you that we might be able to save your she. You calmed down rather quickly when you heard that.**_' Rokubi chuckled a bit at that. '_**Anyway, I told you that we could save her and that there would be consequences. You accepted that with no hesitation and we proceeded to save her life. Once she was alive again I pulled my chakra back and you passed out from chakra exhaustion, and now we find ourselves here.**_' Rokubi explained to his host.

Ryld was stunned, he had trained with Rokubi-sensei since he was a child and had never remembered losing it like that. Always before as soon as he felt his control slipping Rokubi-sensei would pull he chakra back immediately. '_Why didn't you pull back your chakra when you sensed me losing control like before when we were training sensei?_' Ryld asked his Bijuu.

'_**Well that is because unlike when we were training, it wasn't my demonic chakra that was making you lose it, you had a perfectly valid reason for acting the way you did Cub. In fact, I know that if I had pulled back all of my chakra then that Karitori-ki character you fought would have most likely killed you as well. So I did the next best thing, I limited you to only one tails worth of my chakra, which was more than enough to kill that bastard.**_' Rokubi explained.

"Hello earth to Ryld-kun, anyone home?" Ino asked her teammate while waiving her hand in front of his face.

Ryld suddenly looked at her. "What? Did you say something Ino-chan, I was kind of spacing out." Ryld explained, trying to cover his conversation with his Bijuu.

Ino just flashed a smile at Ryld and sat down on the bed with him. Ryld finally realized that he was inside, lying on a comfortable bed. "Oh I better go tell Aoba-sensei that you're awake. Ill be back soon Ryld-kun." Ino said with another smile before leaving.

'_**Now that we're alone Cub, I need to tell you about the consequences of what you did.**_' Rokubi said in a serious tone of voice.

'_What consequences Rokubi-sensei?_' Ryld asked.

'_**Well for one, you and that girl are now connected. When you used our combined chakra to bring her back to life it created a bond between the two of you. She is now bonded to you as your mate.**_'

Ryld was nodding his head to what his Bijuu was telling him. It took about a full minute for what Rokubi had said to really hit the young man. "MY WHAT?" Ryld yelled out so startled by what Rokubi had said that he actually said it out loud.

Ryld could hear his tenant laughing inside his head. '_**Like I just said Cub, she is bonded to you as your mate. She will start feeling more attracted to you then she was before and you will feel the same way, also you will become more protective of her. Also bringing her back from death will probably have a few physical changes to her. I sensed a second chakra affinity within her which was activated when we brought her back to life, and since it was demon chakra we used, she will become physically stronger and she will heal more quickly, all without losing any of her feminine charms.**_' Rokubi explained.

'_So by bringing Ino back to life I've forced her to be my mate and be attracted to me?_' Ryld asked in a dejected way. He felt like he was one step shy of rape.

'_**No you baka, it didn't force anything on her. It enhanced the feelings that were already there. She was already attracted to you otherwise the bond would have never formed. You might have still been able to bring her back to life, but if there were no feelings for you then the bond as mates would have never been formed.**_' Rokubi explained to his thickheaded host. He wondered if he should tell Ryld that the other female was also attracted to him quite strongly, but decided not to, as it would be very entertaining to watch this unfold.

Shortly after his conversation with Rokubi the door to his room opened and in walked Aoba, followed closely by Ino with Tayuya entering last and closing the door. "Well Ryld, I see you have finally woken up. You were asleep for a full day after we brought you back to Omashu." Aoba said pleasantly, before turning and looking at Ryld seriously. "So now that we are all here and awake, would you care to explain to us just what the hell happened out there?"

Ryld looked uncomfortably at his sensei and teammates. He didn't know if he should tell them since he was afraid that they would reject him like many adults did Naruto, however Rokubi voiced his own opinion. '_**Listen Cub, you should tell them the truth. For one they deserve to know, and for another I very much doubt that they would suddenly shun you. Especially not your she.**_' Rokubi explained to his host.

Ryld agreed with his tenant. "All right, you all might want to sit down for this one." Ryld said to his friends. All three of them found places to sit. Aoba sat on the chair in the room, Tayuya leaned against the table, and Ino crawled onto the bed next to Ryld. "I'm a Jinchuuriki." He said. Ino and Tayuya looked a little confused by what he said while Aoba slowly nodded his head, Recognizing the chakra cloak for what it was now. "I hold the Rokubi no Ookami, the six-tails demon wolf. Now before you say anything, Rokubi-sensei is not an evil demon like most Bijuu. My father sealed him inside me. He was Rokubi's previous Jinchuuriki. Now unlike most Bijuu, Rokubi-sensei was not sealed inside a person as a mean of containing him so that he wouldn't rampage around, he actually chose to be sealed within a human. Now this is an S-rank village secret, the only people who know this are Hokage-sama and my Kaa-san, and a few of Hokage-sama's ANBU. We made sure to keep this a secret from all the civilians and from the elders, since Hokage-sama doesn't trust them. Now as to what happened during the fight was that when I realized that I couldn't beat Akuma, I used some of Rokubi-sensei's demonic chakra to get a boost. Then when I saw that bastard Karitori-ki stab Ino-chan and I kind of lost it. Rokubi-sensei limited me to one tails worth of his chakra and I kind of went nuts. I don't really remember what I did, but I managed to save Ino-chan." Ryld explained to his Teammates.

All three of the Konoha shinobi were gob smacked. While Aoba knew that Naruto was the container for the Kyuubi, he had never even suspected that Ryld might be a Jinchuuriki. Ino and Tayuya were amazed that Ryld had a demon sealed inside of him, although knowing that didn't really change their opinion of him. "Well Ryld that is certainly some story there, I suppose that we will have to talk with Hokage-sama about all of this. When you are ready to go we will head back to Konoha." Aoba said to his young student, quickly he and Tayuya got up and left the room.

Ryld let out a breath he hadn't realized he had been holding, when he suddenly felt something moving against his side. Looking down he noticed that Ino had snuggled up against him and was looking at him with her bright green eyes. Ryld decided he had better explain what all happened with her as well. "Listen Ino-chan, there are some things we need to talk about. When I saved you yesterday, I didn't stop you from dying. I actually brought you back to life. Rokubi-sensei told me that there would be consequences for bringing you back." Ryld said to the blonde lying against him.

Ino looked up at Ryld with a confused look on her face. "What kind of consequences Ryld-kun?" Ino asked the Jinchuuriki.

Ryld decided to get it out of the way. "Well this can be either good or bad depending on how you look at it. You and I are bonded as mates now. I'm sorry Ino-chan." Ryld told her in a dejected tone.

Ino was looking at him wide eyed. Ryld was waiting for her to explode at him and closed his eyes when he felt her grab his face and suddenly she was kissing him. To say that Ryld was shocked would be a complete understatement. He was so shocked by the kiss that he didn't respond at first but quickly got over his shock and reciprocated her kiss. The two young shinobi stayed there kissing for a few minutes until the need for air won out and they ended their kiss.

Both teens had blushes on their faces as they looked at each other. "So you were saying something Ryld-kun?" Ino asked the young Jinchuuriki with a mischievous glint in her eyes. Ryld wisely kept his mouth shut and simply shook his head.

Ino grinned at him and leaned forward for another kiss, which he happily complied with. The two stayed like this for several more minutes before breaking off their make out session. "Ino-chan, there's more to this than the two of us being bonded." Ryld said to the young Yamanaka. "Rokubi-sensei told me that when he brought you back to life it activated a second chakra nature inside of you. I don't know what it is, but I'm sure Aoba-sensei has some Chakra paper you can test it with. He also told me that by using his demonic chakra to bring you back you gained some minor traits of a Jinchuuriki. You will heal faster than a normal person and you will be slightly stronger physically and more resistant to damage." Ryld explained to his new girlfriend.

Ino was shocked by this, but not as much as most would think. Ever since she had woken up she felt stronger than before, and her Suiton manipulation had become slightly more erratic since she felt like her chakra was trying to change to something different. "Thank you Ryld-kun for bringing me back to life. As far as being bonded to you as your mate, well I couldn't be happier about that. I've liked you since we got put on the same team together, so this doesn't bother me. As far as you being a Jinchuuriki, well I don't care about that. You are still you even if you have a demon inside you. Now lets go find Aoba-sensei so we can go home." Ino said as she gave Ryld a peck on the cheek and headed outside.

Ryld quickly got out of bed and unsealed one of his spare sets of clothes to get dressed in. His black trench coat had survived due to the strength and repair seals his mother had put on them. Soon he was fully dressed and headed outside. He saw Tayuya sitting in a chair playing a tune on her flute for a group of children. Aoba was standing nearby speaking with Daisuke. Ryld walked towards his sensei, Aoba noticed the Genin and excused himself from the village leader.

"Ah Ryld, how are you feeling?" Aoba asked his male student.

"Better Aoba-sensei. When are we going to be heading back to Konoha?" The young Jinchuuriki asked his teacher.

Aoba was about to answer when he heard a hawk's cry above him. Looking up he saw a Konoha messenger hawk. Aoba held out his arm and the messenger hawk dove down and landed on Aoba's arm. Aoba pulled the scroll out of the case on its back and quickly unrolled it. "Apparently not as soon as I thought." Aoba said. "Ryld I need you to gather up Ino and Tayuya, we are heading to Nami no Kuni as soon as we are all together to help out Team eight." With that Aoba quickly went over to Daisuke and informed him to send the messenger hawk along with a scroll back to Konoha. He also informed him to ask the Hokage for any further assistance he might require to help rebuild Omashu.

Ryld quickly gathered up his teammates and all their gear and they met Aoba at the edge of Omashu. "All right team, we have a new mission. Apparently Team eight got in over their heads with the escort mission and we are going to assist. As far as we know at minimum we will have to deal with Momochi Zabuza, the Kirigakure no Kijin (_Demon of the Hidden Mist_), and a fake Hunter-nin. There may be others that we will have to deal with as well. So we need to get to Nami as soon as possible. I am going to be pushing you all so that we get there quickly. Take soldier pills if you need in order to keep up, understood?" The sunglasses wearing Jonin asked his team. He received a loud shout of 'HAI' from all three of them. With that Team six took off in the direction of Nami no Kuni.

**END CHAPTER FIVE**


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